Kitabı oku: «That Boy Of Norcott's», sayfa 15

CHAPTER XXX. HASTY TIDINGS

Of all the revulsions of feeling that can befall the heart, I know of none to compare in poignant agony with the sudden consciousness that you are hated where once you were loved; that where once you had turned for consolation or sympathy you have now nothing to expect but coldness and distrust; that the treasure of affection on which you have counted against the day of adversity had proved bankrupt, and nothing remained of all its bright hopes and promises but bitter regrets and sorrowful repinings.

It was in the very last depth of this spirit I now locked myself in my room to determine what I should do, by what course I should shape my future. I saw the stake for which Madame Cleremont was playing. She had resolved that my mother’s marriage should be broken, and she herself declared Lady Norcott. That my father might be brought to accede to such a plan was by no means improbable. Its extravagance and its enormity would have been great inducements, had he no other interest in the matter.

I began to canvass with myself how persons poor and friendless could possibly meet the legal battle which this question should originate, and how my mother, in her destitution and poverty, could contend against the force of the wealth that would be opposed to her. It had only been by the united efforts of her relatives and friends, all eager to support her in such a cause, that she had been enabled to face the expenses of the suit my father had brought on the question of my guardianship. How could she again sustain a like charge? Was it likely that her present condition would enable her to fee leaders on circuit and bar magnates, to pay the costs of witnesses, and all the endless outgoings of the law?

So long as I lived, I well knew my poor mother would compromise none of the rights that pertained to me; but if I could be got rid of, – and the event of the morning shot through my mind, – some arrangement with her might not be impossible, – at least, it was open to them to think so; and I could well imagine that they would build on such a foundation. It was not easy to imagine a woman like \ Madame Cleremont, a person of the most attractive manners, beautiful, gifted, and graceful, capable of a great crime; but she herself had shown me more than once in fiction the portraiture of an individual who, while shrinking with horror from the coarse contact of guilt, would willingly set the springs in motion which ultimately conduce to the most appalling disasters. I remember even her saying to me one day, “It is in watching the terrible explosions their schemes have ignited, that cowards learn to taste what they fancy to be the ecstasy of courage.”

While I thought what a sorry adversary I should prove against such a woman, with all the wiles of her nature, and all the seductions by which she could display them, my eyes fell upon the packet from Fiume, which still lay with its seal unbroken. I broke it open half carelessly. It contained an envelope marked “Letters,” and the following note: —

“Herr Owen, – With this you are informed that the house of Hodnig and Oppovich has failed, dockets of bankruptcy having been yesterday declared against that firm; the usual assignees will be duly appointed by the court to liquidate, on such terms as the estate permits. Present liabilities are currently stated as below eight millions of florins. Actual property will not meet half that sum.

“Further negotiations regarding the Hunyadi contract on your part are consequently unnecessary, seeing that the most favorable conditions you could obtain would in no wise avert or even lessen the blow that has fallen on the house.

“I am directed to enclose you by bill the sum of two hundred and eighteen florins twenty-seven kreutzers, which at the current exchange will pay your salary to the end of the present quarter, and also to state that, having duly acknowledged the receipt of this sum to me by letter, you are to consider yourself free of all engagement to the house. I am also instructed to say that your zeal and probity will be duly attested when any reference is addressed to the managers of this estate.

“I am, with accustomed esteem and respect,

“Your devoted servant,

“Jacob Ulrich.

“P. S. Herr Ignaz is, happily for him, in a condition that renders him unconscious of his calamity. The family has retired for the present to the small cottage near the gate of the Abazzia Villa, called ‘Die Hutte,’ but desires complete privacy, and declines all condolences. – J. U.

“2nd P. S. The enclosed letters have arrived here during your absence.”

So intensely imbued was my mind with suspicion and distrust, that it was not till after long and careful examination I satisfied myself that this letter was genuine, and that its contents might be taken as true. The packet it enclosed would, however, have resolved all doubt; they were three letters from my dear mother. Frequent reference was made to other letters which had never reached me, and in which it was clear the mode in which she had learned my address was explained. She also spoke of Sara as of one she knew by correspondence, and gave me to understand how she was following every little humble incident of my daily life with loving interest and affection. She enjoined me by all means to devote myself heartily and wholly to those who had befriended me so generously, and to merit the esteem of that good girl, who, caring nothing for herself, gave her heart and soul to the service of her father.

“I have told you so much,” said she, “of myself in former letters” (these I never saw) “that I shall not weary you with more. You know why I gave up the school, and through what reasonings I consented to call myself Lady Norcott, though in such poverty as mine the assumption of a title only provoked ridicule. Mr. McBride, however, persuaded me that a voluntary surrender of my position might be made terrible use of against me, should – what I cannot believe – the attempt ever be made to question the legality of my marriage with your father.

“It has been so constantly repeated, however, that Sir Roger means to marry this lady, – some say they are already married, – that I have had careful abstracts made of the registry, and every detail duly certified which can establish your legitimacy, – not that I can bring myself to believe your father would ever raise that question. Strangely enough, my allowance, left unpaid for several years, was lately resumed, and Foster and Wall received orders to acknowledge my drafts on them, for what, I concluded, were meant to cover all the arrears due. As I had already tided over these years of trial and pressure, I refused all save the sum due for the current year, and begged to learn Sir Roger’s address that I might write to him. To this they replied ‘that they had no information to give me on the subject; that their instructions, as regarded payments to me, came to them from the house of Rodiger, in Frankfort, and in the manner and terms already communicated to me,’ – all showing me that the whole was a matter of business, into which no sentiment was to enter, or be deemed capable of entering.”

It was about this period my mother came to learn my address, and she avowed that all other thoughts and cares were speedily lost in the whirlpool of joy these tidings swept around her. Her eagerness to see me grew intense, but was tempered by the fear lest her selfish anxiety might prejudice me in that esteem I had already won from my employers, of whom, strangely enough, she spoke freely and familiarly, as though she had known them.

The whole tone of these letters – and I read them over and over – calmed and reassured me. Full of personal details, they were never selfish in its unpleasant sense. They often spoke of poverty, but rather as a thing to be baffled by good-humored contrivance or rendered endurable by habit than as matter for complaint and bewailment. Little dashes of light-heartedness would now and then break the dark sombreness of the picture, and show how her spirit was yet alive to life and its enjoyments. Above all, there was no croaking, no foreboding. She had lived through some years of trial and sorrow, and if the future had others as gloomy in store, it was time enough when they came to meet their exigencies.

What a blessing was it to me to get these at such a time! I no longer felt myself alone and isolated in the world. There was, I now knew, a bank of affection at my disposal at which I could draw at will; and what an object for my imitation was that fine courage of hers, that took defeats as mere passing shadows, and was satisfied to fight on to the end, ever hopeful and ever brave.

How I would have liked to return to Madame Cleremont, and read her some passages of these letters, and said, “And this is the woman you seek to dethrone, and whose place you would fill! This is she whose rival you aspire to be. What think you of the contest now? Which of you should prove the winner? Is it with a nature like this you would like to measure yourself?”

How I would have liked to have dared her to such a combat, and boldly declared that I would make my father himself the umpire as to the worthier. As to her hate or her vengeance, she had as much as promised me both, but I defied them; and I believed I even consulted my safety by open defiance. As I thus stimulated myself with passionate counsels, and burned with eagerness for the moment I might avow them, I flung open my window for fresh air, for my excitement had risen to actual fever.

It was very dark without Night had set in about two hours, but no stars had yet shone out, and a thick impenetrable blackness pervaded everywhere. Some peasants were shovelling the snow in the court beneath, making a track from the gate to the house-door, and here and there a dimly burning lantern attached to a pole would show where the work was being carried out. As it was about the time of the evening when travellers were wont to arrive, the labor was pressed briskly forward, and I could hear an overseer’s voice urging the men to increased zeal and activity.

“There has been a snow-mountain fallen at Miklos, they say,” cried one, “and none can pass the road for many a day.”

“If they cannot come from Pesth, they can come from Hermanstadt, from Temesvar, from Klausenberg. Guests can come from any quarter,” cried the overseer.

I listened with amusement to the discussion that followed; the various sentiments they uttered as to whether this system of open hospitality raised the character of a country, or was not a heavy mulct out of the rights which the local poor possessed on the properties of their rich neighbors.

“Every flask of Tokayer drunk at the upper table,” cried one, “is an eimer of Mediasch lost to the poor man.”

“That is the true way to look at it,” cried another. “We want neither Counts nor Tokayer.”

“That was a Saxon dog barked there!” called out the overseer. “No Hungarian ever reviled what his land is most famed for.”

“Here come travellers now,” shouted one from the gate. “I hear horses at full speed on the Klausenberg road.”

“Lanterns to the gate, and stand free of the road,” cried the overseer; and now the scene became one of striking excitement, as the lights flitted rapidly from place to place; the great arch of the gate being accurately marked in outline, and the deep cleft in the snow lined on either side by lanterns suspended between posts.

“They ‘re coming at a furious pace,” cried one; “they ‘ve passed the toll-bridge at full gallop.”

“Then it’s the Count himself,” chimed in another, “There ‘s none but he could force the toll-bar.”

“It’s a country wagon, with four juckers; and here it comes;” and as he spoke four sweating horses swung through the gateway, and came full speed into the court.

“Where is Kitzlach? Call Kitzlach! call the doctor!” screamed a voice from the wagon. “Tell him to come down at once.”

“Out with the juchera, and harness a fresh team,” cried the same voice. And now, as he descended from the wagon, he was surrounded with eager figures, all anxious to hear his tidings. As I could gather nothing from where I was, I hastily threw on a fur coat, and made my way down to the court. I soon learned the news. A terrible disaster had befallen the hunting-party. A she-boar, driven frantic by her wounds, had dashed suddenly into the midst of them, slightly wounded the Count and his head Jager, but dangerously one of the guests, who had sustained a single combat with her and killed her; not, however, without grievous injury to himself, for a large blood-vessel had been severed; all the efforts to stanch which had been but half successful.

“Have you your tourniquet, doctor?” cried the youth from a wagon, as the equipage was turned again to the gate.

“Everything – everything.”

“You ‘ll want any quantity of lint and bandages; and, remember, nothing can be had down yonder.”

“Make your mind easy! I’ve forgotten nothing. Just keep your beasts quiet till I get up.”

I drew nigh as he was about to mount, and whispered a word in his ear.

“I don’t know,” said he, gruffly. “I can’t see why you should ask.”

“Why don’t you get up?” cried the youth, impatiently.

“There’s a young fellow here importuning me to ask you for a place in the wagon. He thinks he knows this stranger.”

“Let him get in at once, then; and let’s have no more delays.” And scarcely had we scrambled to our places, than the loud whip resounded with the quick, sharp report of pistol-shots, and the beasts sprung out at once, rushed through the narrow gateway, and were soon stretching along at their topmost pace through impenetrable blackness.

Crouching in the straw at the bottom of the wagon, I crept as closely as I could to where the doctor was seated beside the young man who drove. I was eager to hear what I could of the incident that had befallen; but, to my great disappointment, they spoke in Hungarian, and all I could gather, from certain dropping expressions, was that both the Count and his English friend had been engaged in some rivalry of personal daring, and that the calamity had come of this insane contest. “They’ll never say ‘Mad as a Hunyadi’ any longer up at Lees. They ‘ll say ‘Mad as an Englishman.’”

The young fellow spoke in wondrous admiration of the wounded man’s courage and coolness, and described how he had taught them to pass a light ligature round his thigh, and tighten it further by inserting a stick to act as a screw. “Up to that,” said he, “he had been bleeding like a tapped Wein-kass; and then he made them give him large goblet» of strong Bordeaux, to sustain him.”

“He’s a bold-hearted fellow then?” said the doctor.

“The Count declares he has never met his equal. They were alone together when I started, for the Englishman said he had something for the Count’s own ear, and begged the others to withdraw.”

“So he thought himself in danger?”

“That he did. I saw him myself take off a large signet ring and lay it on the table beside his watch, and he pointed them out to Hunyadi as he came in, and said something in English; but the Count rejoined quickly, ‘No, no. It’s not come to that yet.’”

While they spoke slowly, I was able to gather at least the meaning of what passed between them, but I lost all clew so soon as they talked eagerly and rapidly, so that, confused by the unmeaning sounds, and made drowsy by the fresh night-air, I at last fell off into a heavy sleep.

I was awakened by the noise of the wheels over a paved street. I looked up, and saw, by the struggling light of a breaking dawn, that we were in a village where a number of people were awaiting us. “Have you brought the doctor?” “Where is the doctor?” cried several together; and he was scarcely permitted to descend, so eager were they to seize and carry him off.

A dense crowd was gathered before the door of a small two-storied house, into which the doctor now disappeared; and I, mixing with the mass, tried as best I might, to ask how the wounded man was doing, and what hopes there were of his life. While I thus went from one to another vainly endeavoring to make my question intelligible, I heard a loud voice cry out in German, “Where is the young fellow who says he knows him?”

“Here,” cried I, boldly. “I believe I know him, – I am almost sure I do.”

“Come to the door, then, and look in; do not utter a word,” cried a tall dark man I soon knew to be Count Hunyadi. “Mind, sir, for your life’s sake, that you don’t disturb him.”

I crept on tiptoe to the slightly opened door, and looked in. There, on a mattress on the floor, a tall man was lying, while the doctor knelt beside him, and seemed to press with all his weight on his thigh. The sick man slowly turned his face to the light, and it was my father! My knees trembled, my sight grew dim; strength suddenly forsook me, and I fell powerless and senseless to the ground.

They were bathing my face and temples with vinegar and water to rally me when the doctor came to say the sick man desired to see me. In a moment the blood rushed to my head, and I cried out, “I am ready.”

“Be calm, sir. A mere word, a gesture, may prove fatal to him,” whispered the doctor to me. “His life hangs on a thread.”

Count Hunyadi was kneeling beside my father, and evidently trying to catch some faint words he was saying, as I stole forward and knelt down by the bedside. My father turned his eyes slowly round till they fell upon me, – when their expression suddenly changed from the look of weary apathy to a stare of full and steadfast meaning, – intense, indeed, in significance; but I dare not say that this conveyed anything like love or affection for me.

“Come closer,” cried he, in a hoarse whisper. “It is Digby, is it not? This boy is my son, Hunyadi,” he said, with an increased effort. “Give me your hand.” He took my trembling fingers in his cold moist hand, and passed the large signet ring over my second finger. “He is my heir. Gentlemen,” he cried, in a tone at once haughty and broken by debility, “my name, my title, my fortune all pas» to him. By to-morrow you will call him Sir Digby – ”

He could not finish; his lips moved without a sound. I was conscious of no more than being drawn heavily across the floor, not utterly bereft of reason, but dulled and stunned as if from the effect of a heavy blow.

When I was able, I crept back to the room. It was now the decline of day. A large white cavalry cloak covered the body. I knelt down beside it, and cried with a bursting heart till late into the night.

CHAPTER XXXI. IN SORROW

Of what followed that night of mourning I remember but snatches and brief glimpses. There is nothing more positively torturing to the mind in sorrow than the way in which the mere excitement of grief robs the intellect of all power of perspective, and gives to the smallest, meanest incidents the prominence and force of great events. It is as though the jar given to the nervous system had untuned us for the entire world, and all things come amiss. I am sure, indeed, I know it would have been impossible to have met more gentle and considerate kindness than I now experienced on every hand, and yet I lived in a sort of feverish irritability, as though expecting each moment to have my position questioned, and my right to be there disputed.

In obedience to the custom of the country, it was necessary that the funeral should take place within forty-eight hours after death, and though all the details had been carefully looked to by the Count’s orders, certain questions still should be asked of me, and my leave obtained for certain acts.

The small church of Hunyadi-Naglos was fixed on for the last resting-place. It contained the graves of eight generations of Hunyadis, and to accord a place amongst them to a stranger, and a Protestant, was deemed a high honor. Affliction seemed to have developed in me all the pride of my race, for I can recall with what sullen hauteur I heard of this concession, and rather took it as a favor accorded than accepted. An overweening sense of all that my father himself would have thought due to his memory was on me, and I tortured my mind to think that no mark of honor he would have desired should be forgotten. As a soldier, he had a right to a soldier’s funeral, and a “Honved” battalion, with their band, received orders to be present For miles around the landed gentry and nobles poured in, with hosts of followers. Next to a death in battle, there was no such noble death as in the hunting-field, and the splendid prowess of my father’s achievement had won him imperishable honor.

All was conducted as if for the funeral of a magnate of Hungary. The titles and rank of the deceased were proclaimed aloud as we entered the graveyard, and each whose station entitled him to be thought a friend came forward and kissed the pall as the body was borne in.

One part of the ceremony overcame me altogether. When the third round of musketry had rung out over the grave, a solemn pause of half a minute or so was to ensue, then the band was to burst out with the first bars of “God preserve the Emperor;” and while a wild cheer arose, I was to spring into the saddle of my father’s horse, which had been led close after the coffin, and to join the cheer. This soldier declaration that death was but a passing terror, revolted me to the heart, and I over and over asserted I could not do this. They would not yield, however; they regarded my reasons as childish sentimentality, and half impugned my courage besides. I do not know why I gave in, nor am I sure I ever did yield; but when the heavy smoke of the last round slowly rose over the bier, I felt myself jerked up into the saddle of a horse that plunged wildly and struck out madly in affright With a rider’s instinct, I held my seat, and even managed the bounding animal with the hand of a practised rider. Four fearful bounds I sat unshaken, while the air rang with the hoarse cheer of some thousand voices, and then a sickness like death itself gathered over my heart, – a sense of horror, of where I was and why, came over me. My arms fell powerless to my sides, and I rolled from the saddle and fell senseless and stunned to the ground.

Without having received serious injury, I was too ill to be removed from the little village of Naglos, where I was confined to bed for ten days. The doctor remained with me for some days, and came again and again to visit me afterwards. The chief care of me, however, devolved on my father’s valet, a smart young Swiss, whom I had difficulty in believing not to be English, so perfectly did he speak our language.

I soon saw this fellow was thoroughly conversant with all my father’s history, and, whether in his confidence or not, knew everything that concerned him, and understood his temperament and nature to perfection. There was much adroitness in the way in which he showed me this, without ever shocking my pride or offending my taste by any display of a supposed influence. Of his consummate tact I need give but one, – a very slight instance, it is true, but enough to denote the man. He, in addressing me as Sir Digby, remarked how the sound of my newly acquired title seemed to recall my father to my mind at once, and ever after limited himself to saying simply “sir,” which attracted no attention from me.

Another instance of his address I must record also. I had got my writing-desk on the bed, and was writing to my mother, to whom I had already despatched two telegraphic messages, but as yet received no reply. “I beg pardon, sir,” said La Grange, entering in his usual noiseless fashion; “but I thought you would like to know that my Lady has left Schloss Hunyadi. She took her departure last night for Pesth.”

“You mean – ” I faltered, not really knowing what I. would say.

“Yes, sir,” said he, thoroughly aware of what was passing in my mind. “She admitted no one, not even the doctor, and started at last with only a few words of adieu in writing for the Countess.”

“What impression has this left? How are they speaking of her?” asked I, blurting out against my will what was working within me.

“I believe, sir,” said he, with a very faint smile, “they lay it all to English ways and habits. At least I have heard no other comments than such as would apply to these.”

“Be sure that you give rise to no others,” said I, sternly.

“Of course not, sir. It would be highly unbecoming in me to do so.”

“And greatly to your disservice besides,” added I, severely.

He bowed in acquiescence, and said no more.

“How long have you served my father, La Grange?” asked I.

“About two years, sir. I succeeded Mr. Nixon, sir, who often spoke of you.”

“Ah, I remember Nixon. What became of him?”

“He set up the Hôtel Victoria at Spa, sir. You know, sir, that he married, and married very well too?”

“No, I never heard of it,” said I, carelessly.

“Yes, sir; he married Delorme’s daughter, la belle Pauline they used to call her at Brussels.”

“What, Pauline Delorme?” said I, growing crimson with I know not what feeling.

“Yes, sir, the same; and she’s the size of old Pierre, her father, already: not but she’s handsome still, – but such a monster!”

I cannot say with what delight I heard of her disfigurement. It was a malice that warmed my heart like some good news.

“It was Sir Roger, sir, that made the match.”

“How could that be? What could he care about it?”

“Well, sir, he certainly gave Nixon five hundred pounds to go and propose for her, and promise old Pierre his patronage, if he agreed to it.”

“Are you sure of this?” asked I, eagerly.

“Nixon himself told me, sir. I remember he said, ‘I haven’t much time to lose about it, for the tutor, Mr. Eccles, is quite ready to take her, on the same terms, and Sir Roger doesn’t care which of us it is.”

“Nor the lady either, apparently,” said I, half angrily.

“Of course not. Pauline was too well brought up for that.”

I was not going to discuss this point of ethics with Mr. La Grange, and soon fell off into a vein of reflection over early loves, and what they led to, which took me at last miles away from Pauline Delorme, and her fascinations.

I would have liked much to learn what sort of a life my father had led of late: whether he had plunged into habits of dissipation and excess; or whether any feeling of remorse had weighed with him, and that he sorrowed over the misery and the sorrow he had so recklessly shed around him; but I shrunk from questioning a servant on such matters, and merely asked as to his habitual spirits and temper.

“Sir Roger was unlike every other gentleman I ever lived with, sir,” said he. “He was never in high spirits except when he was hard up for money. Put him down in a little country inn to wait for his remittances, and live on a few francs a day till they arrived, and I never saw his equal for good humor. He ‘d play with the children; he ‘d work in the garden. I ‘ve seen him harness the donkey, and go off for a load of firewood. There’s nothing he would not do to oblige, and with a kind word and a smile for every one all the while; but if some morning he ‘d get up with a dark frown on his face, and say, ‘La Grange, get in your bills here, and pay them; we must get away from this dog-hole,’ I knew well the banker’s letter had come, and that whatever he might want, it would not be money.”

“And had my Lady – Madame, I mean – no influence over him?”

“None, sir, or next to none; he was all ceremony with her; took her in to dinner every day with great state, showed her every attention at table, left her at liberty to spend what money she liked. If she fancied an equipage, it was ordered at once. If she liked a bracelet, it was sent home. As to toilette, I believe there are queens have not as many dresses to change. We had two fourgons of her luggage alone, when we came to the Schloss, and she was always saying there was something she was longing for.”

“Did not this irritate my father?”

“No, sir; he would simply say, ‘Don’t wish, but write for it.’ And I verily believe this indifference piqued her, – she saw that no sacrifice of money cost him anything, and this thought wounded her pride.”

“So that there was not much happiness between them?”

“There was none, sir! Something there was that Sir Roger would never consent to, but which she never ceased to insist on, and I often wondered how she could go on, to press a man of his dangerous temper, as she did, and at times she would do so to the very verge of a provocation. Do you know, sir,” said he, after a short silence, – “if I was to be on my oath to-morrow, I ‘d not say that he was not seeking his death when he met it? I never saw a man so sick of life, – he was only puzzled how to lay it down without dishonor.”

I motioned him to leave me as he said this, and of my father I never spoke to him more.