Kitabı oku: «The Fortunes Of Glencore», sayfa 24

CHAPTER XL. UPTONISM

About noon on the following day, Sir Horace Upton and the Colonel drove up to the gate of the villa at Sorrento, and learned, to their no small astonishment, that the Princess had taken her departure that morning for Como. If Upton heard these tidings with a sense of pain, nothing in his manner betrayed the sentiment; on the contrary, he proceeded to do the honors of the place like its owner. He showed Harcourt the grounds and the gardens, pointed out all the choice points of view, directed his attention to rare plants and curious animals; and then led him within doors to admire the objects of art and luxury which abounded there.

“And that, I conclude, is a portrait of the Princess,” said Harcourt, as he stood before what had been a flattering likeness twenty years back.

“Yes, and a wonderful resemblance,” said Upton, eying it through his glass. “Fatter and fuller now, perhaps; but it was done after an illness.”

“By Jove!” muttered Harcourt, “she must be beautiful; I don’t think I ever saw a handsomer woman!”

“You are only repeating a European verdict. She is the most perfectly beautiful woman of the Continent.”

“So there is no flattery in that picture?”

“Flattery! Why, my dear fellow, these people, the very cleverest of them, can’t imagine anything as lovely as that. They can imitate, – they never invent real beauty.”

“And clever, you say, too?”

“Esprit enough for a dozen reviewers and fifty fashionable novelists.” And as he spoke he smiled and coquetted with the portrait, as though to say, “Don’t mind my saying all this to your face.”

“I suppose her history is a very interesting one.”

“Her history, my worthy Harcourt! She has a dozen histories. Such women have a life of politics, a life of literature, a life of the salons, a life of the affections, not to speak of the episodes of jealousy, ambition, triumph, and sometimes defeat, that make up the brilliant web of their existence. Some three or four such people give the whole character and tone to the age they live in. They mould its interests, sway its fashions, suggest its tastes, and they finally rule those who fancy that they rule mankind.”

“Egad, then, it makes one very sorry for poor mankind,” muttered Harcourt, with a most honest sincerity of voice.

“Why should it do so, my good Harcourt? Is the refinement of a woman’s intellect a worse guide than the coarser instincts of a man’s nature? Would you not yourself rather trust your destinies to the fair creature yonder than be left to the legislative mercies of that old gentleman there, Hardenberg, or his fellow on the other side, Metternich?”

“Grim-looking fellow the Prussian; the other is much better,” said Harcourt, rather evading the question.

“I confess I prefer the Princess,” said Upton, as he bowed before the portrait in deepest courtesy. “But here comes breakfast. I have ordered them to give it to us here, that we may enjoy that glorious sea view while we eat.”

“I thought your cook a man of genius, Upton, but this fellow is his master,” said Harcourt, as he tasted his soup.

“They are brothers, – twins, too; and they have their separate gifts,” said Upton, affectedly. “My fellow, they tell me, has the finer intelligence; but he plays deeply, speculates on the Bourse, and it spoils his nerve.”

Harcourt watched the delivery of this speech to catch if there were any signs of raillery in the speaker; he felt that there was a kind of mockery in the words; but there was none in the manner, for there was not any in the mind of him who uttered them.

“My chef,” resumed Upton, “is a great essayist, who must have time for his efforts. This fellow is a feuilleton writer, who is required to be new and sparkling every day of the year, – always varied, never profound.”

“And is this your life of every day?” said Harcourt, as he surveyed the splendid room, and carried his glance towards the terraced gardens that flanked the sea.

“Pretty much this kind of thing,” sighed Upton, wearily.

“And no great hardship either, I should call it.”

“No, certainly not,” said the other, hesitatingly. “To one like myself, for instance, who has no health for the wear and tear of public life, and no heart for its ambitions, there is a great deal to like in the quiet retirement of a first-class mission.”

“Is there really, then, nothing to do?” asked Harcourt, innocently.

“Nothing, if you don’t make it for yourself. You can have a harvest if you like to sow. Otherwise, you may lie in fallow the year long. The subordinates take the petty miseries of diplomacy for their share, – the sorrows of insulted Englishmen, the passport difficulties, the custom-house troubles, the police insults. The Secretary calls at the offices of the Government, carries messages and the answers; and I, when I have health for it, make my compliments to the King in a cocked hat on his birthday, and have twelve grease-pots illuminated over my door to honor the same festival.”

“And is that all?”

“Very nearly. In fact, when one does anything more, they generally do wrong; and by a steady persistence in this kind of thing for thirty years, you are called ‘a safe man, who never compromised his Government,’ and are certain to be employed by any party in power.”

“I begin to think I might be an envoy myself,” said Harcourt.

“No doubt of it; we have two or three of your calibre in Germany this moment, – men liked and respected; and, what is of more consequence, well looked upon at ‘the Office.’”

“I don’t exactly follow you in that last remark.”

“I scarcely expected you should; and as little can I make it clear to you. Know, however, that in that venerable pile in Downing Street called the Foreign Office, there is a strange, mysterious sentiment, – partly tradition, partly prejudice, partly toadyism, – which bands together all within its walls, from the whiskered porter at the door to the essenced Minister in his bureau, into one intellectual conglomerate, that judges of every man in ‘the Line’ – as they call diplomacy – with one accord. By that curious tribunal, which hears no evidence, nor ever utters a sentence, each man’s merits are weighed; and to stand well in the Office is better than all the favors of the Court, or the force of great abilities.”

“But I cannot comprehend how mere subordinates, the underlings of official life, can possibly influence the fortunes of men so much above them.”

“Picture to yourself the position of an humble guest at a great man’s table; imagine one to whose pretensions the sentiments of the servants’ hall are hostile: he is served to all appearance like the rest of the company; he gets his soup and his fish like those about him, and his wine-glass is duly replenished, – yet what a series of petty mortifications is he the victim of; how constantly is he made to feel that he is not in public favor; how certain, too, if he incur an awkwardness, to find that his distresses are exposed. The servants’ hall is the Office, my dear Harcourt, and its persecutions are equally polished.”

“Are you a favorite there yourself?” asked the other, slyly.

“A prime favorite; they all like me!” said he, throwing himself back in his chair, with an air of easy self-satisfaction; and Harcourt stared at him, curious to know whether so astute a man was the dupe of his own self-esteem, or merely amusing himself with the simplicity of another. Ah, my good Colonel, give up the problem; it is an enigma far above your powers to solve. That nature is too complex for your elucidation; in its intricate web no one thread holds the clew, but all is complicated, crossed, and entangled.

“Here comes a cabinet messenger again,” said Upton, as a courier’s calèche drove up, and a well-dressed and well-looking fellow leaped out.

“Ah, Stanhope, how are you?” said Sir Horace, shaking his hand with what from him was warmth. “Do you know Colonel Harcourt? Well, Frank, what news do you bring me?”

“The best of news.”

“From F. O., I suppose,” said Upton, sighing.

“Just so. Adderley has told the King you are the only man capable to succeed him. The Press says the same, and the clubs are all with you.”

“Not one of them all, I’d venture to say, has asked whether I have the strength or health for it,” said Sir Horace, with a voice of pathetic intonation.

“Why, as we never knew you want energy for whatever fell to your lot to do, we have the same hope still,” said Stanhope.

“So say I too,” cried Harcourt. “Like many a good hunter, he ‘ll do his work best when he is properly weighted.”

“It is quite refreshing to listen to you both – creatures with crocodile digestion – talk to a man who suffers nightmare if he over-eat a dry biscuit at supper. I tell you frankly, it would be the death of me to take the Foreign Office. I ‘d not live through the season, – the very dinners would kill me; and then, the House, the heat, the turmoil, the worry of opposition, and the jaunting back and forward to Brighton or to Windsor!”

While he muttered these complaints, he continued to read with great rapidity the letters which Stanhope had brought him, and which, despite all his practised coolness, had evidently afforded him pleasure in the perusal.

“Adderley bore it,” continued he, “just because he was a mere machine, wound up to play off so many despatches, like so many tunes; and then, he permitted a degree of interference on the King’s part I never could have suffered; and he liked to be addressed by the King of Prussia as ‘Dear Adderley.’ But what do I care for all these vanities? Have I not seen enough of the thing they call the great world? Is not this retreat better and dearer to me than all the glare and crash of London, or all the pomp and splendor of Windsor?”

“By Jove! I suspect you are right, after all,” said Harcourt, with an honest energy of voice.

“Were I younger, and stronger in health, perhaps,” said Upton, “this might have tempted me. Perhaps I can picture to myself what I might have made of it; for you may perceive, George, these people have done nothing: they have been pouring hot water on the tea-leaves Pitt left them, – no more.”

“And you ‘d have a brewing of your own, I ‘ve no doubt,” responded the other.

“I’d at least have foreseen the time when this compact, this Holy Alliance, should become impossible; when the developed intelligence of Europe would seek something else from their rulers than a well-concocted scheme of repression. I ‘d have provided for the hour when England must either break with her own people or her allies; and I ‘d have inaugurated a new policy, based upon the enlarged views and extended intelligence of mankind.”

“I ‘m not certain that I quite apprehend you,” muttered Harcourt.

“No matter; but you can surely understand that if a set of mere mediocrities have saved England, a batch of clever men might have done something more. She came out of the last war the acknowledged head of Europe: does she now hold that place, and what will she be at the next great struggle?”

“England is as great as ever she was,” cried Harcourt, boldly.

“Greater in nothing is she than in the implicit credulity of her people!” sighed Upton. “I only wish I could have the same faith in my physicians that she has in hers! By the way, Stanhope, what of that new fellow they have got at St. Leonard’s? They tell me he builds you up in some preparation of gypsum, so that you can’t move or stir, and that the perfect repose thus imparted to the system is the highest order of restorative.”

“They were just about to try him for manslaughter when I left England,” said Stanhope, laughing.

“As often the fate of genius in these days as in more barbarous times,” said Upton. “I read his pamphlet with much interest. If you were going back, Harcourt, I ‘d have begged of you to try him.”

“And I ‘m forced to say, I’d have refused you flatly.”

“Yet it is precisely creatures of robust constitution, like you, that should submit themselves to these trials, for the sake of humanity. Frail organizations, like mine, cannot brave these ordeals. What are they talking of in town? Any gossip afloat?”

“The change of ministry is the only topic. Glencore’s affair has worn itself out.”

“What was that about Glencore?” asked Upton, half indolently.

“A strange story; one can scarcely believe it. They say that Glencore, hearing of the King’s great anxiety to be rid of the Queen, asked an audience of his Majesty, and actually suggested, as the best possible expedient, that his Majesty should deny the marriage. They add that he reasoned the case so cleverly, and with such consummate craft and skill, it was with the greatest difficulty that the King could be persuaded that he was deranged. Some say his Majesty was outraged beyond endurance; others, that he was vastly amused, and laughed immoderately over it.”

“And the world, how do they pronounce upon it?”

“There are two great parties, – one for Glencore’s sanity the other against; but, as I said before, the cabinet changes have absorbed all interest latterly, and the Viscount and his case are forgotten; and when I started, the great question was, who was to have the Foreign Office.”

“I believe I could tell them one who will not,” said Upton, with a melancholy smile. “Dine with me, both of you, to-day, at seven; no company, you know. There is an opera in the evening, and my box is at your service, if you like to go; and so, till then;” and with a little gesture of the hand he waved an adieu, and glided from the room.

“I’m sorry he’s not up to the work of office,” said Har-court; “there’s plenty of ability in him.”

“The best man we have,” said Stanhope; “so they say at the Office.”

“He’s gone to lie down, I take it; he seemed much exhausted. What say you to a walk back to town?”

“I ask nothing better,” said Stanhope; and they started for Naples.

CHAPTER XLI. AN EVENING IN FLORENCE

That happy valley of the Val d’Arno, in which fair Florence stands, possesses, amidst all its virtues, none more conspicuous than the blessed forgetfulness of the past, so eminently the gift of those who dwell there. Faults and follies of a few years back have so faded by time as to be already historical; and as, in certain climates, rocks and stones become shrined by lichens, and moss-covered in a year or two, so here, in equally brief space, bygones are shrouded and shadowed in a way that nothing short of cruelty and violence could once more expose to view.

The palace where Lady Glencore once displayed all her attractions of beauty and toilette, and dispensed a hospitality of princely splendor, had remained for a course of time close barred and shut up. The massive gate was locked, the windows shuttered, and curious tourists were told that there were objects of interest within, but it was impossible to obtain sight of them. The crowds who once flocked there at nightfall, and whose equipages filled the court, now drove on to other haunts, scarcely glancing as they passed at the darkened casements of the grim old edifice; when at length the rumor ran that “some one” had arrived there. Lights were seen in the porter’s lodge, the iron grille was observed to open and shut, and tradespeople came and went within the building; and, finally, the assurance gained ground that its former owner had returned.

“Only think who has come back to us,” said one of the idlers of the Cascine, as he lounged on the steps of a fashionable carriage, – “La Nina!” And at once the story went far and near, repeated at every corner, and discussed in every circle; so that had a stranger to the place but caught the passing sounds, he would have heard that one name uttered in every group he encountered. La Nina! and why not the Countess of Glencore, or, at least, the Countess de la Torre? As when exiled royalists assume titles in accordance with fallen fortunes, so, in Italy, injured fame seeks sympathy in the familiarity of the Christian name, and “Society” at once accepts the designation as that of those who throw themselves upon the affectionate kindness of the world, rather than insist upon its reverence and respect.

Many of her former friends were still there; but there was also a numerous class, principally foreigners, who only knew of her by repute. The traditions of her beauty, her gracefulness, the charms of her demeanor, and the brilliancy of her diamonds, abounded. Her admirers were of all ages, from those who worshipped her loveliness to that not less enthusiastic section who swore by her cook; and it was indeed “great tidings” to hear that she had returned.

Some statistician has asserted that no less than a hundred thousand people awake every day in London, not one of whom knows where he will pass the night. Now, Florence is but a small city, and the lacquered-boot class bear but a slight proportion to the shoeless herd of humanity. Yet there is a very tolerable sprinkling of well-dressed, well-got-up individuals, who daily arise without the very vaguest conception of who is to house them, fire them, light them, and cigar them for the evening. They are an interesting class, and have this strong appeal to human sympathy, that not one of them, by any possible effort, could contribute to his own support.

They toil not, neither do they spin. They have the very fewest of social qualities; they possess no conversational gifts; they are not even moderately good reporters of the passing events of the day. And yet, strange to say, the world they live in seems to have some need of them. Are they the last relics of a once gifted class, – worn out, effete, and exhausted, – degenerated like modern Greeks from those who once shook the Parthenon? Or are they what anatomists call “rudimentary structures,” – the first abortive attempts of nature to fashion something profitable and good? Who knows?

Amidst this class the Nina’s arrival was announced as the happiest of all tidings; and speculation immediately set to work to imagine who would be the favorites of the house; what would be its habits and hours; would she again enter the great world of society, or would she, as her quiet, unannounced arrival portended, seek a less conspicuous position? Nor was this the mere talk of the cafés and the Cascine. The salons were eagerly discussing the very same theme.

In certain social conditions a degree of astuteness is acquired as to who may and who may not be visited, that, in its tortuous intricacy of reasons, would puzzle the craftiest head that ever wagged in Equity. Not that the code is a severe one; it is exactly in its lenity lies its difficulty, – so much may be done, but so little may be fatal! The Countess in the present case enjoyed what in England is reckoned a great privilege, – she was tried by her peers – or “something more.” They were, however, all nice discriminators as to the class of case before them, and they knew well what danger there was in admitting to their “guild” any with a little more disgrace than their neighbors. It was curious enough that she, in whose behalf all this solicitude was excited, should have been less than indifferent as to the result; and when, on the third day of the trial, a verdict was delivered in her favor, and a shower of visiting-cards at the porter’s lodge declared that the act of her recognition had passed, her orders were that the cards should be sent back to their owners, as the Countess had not the honor of their acquaintance.

“Les grands coups se font respecter toujours,” was the maxim of a great tactician in war and politics; and the adage is no less true in questions of social life. We are so apt to compute the strength of resources by the amount of pretension that we often yield the victory to the mere declaration of force. We are not, however, about to dwell on this theme, – our business being less with those who discussed her, than with the Countess of Glencore herself.

In a large salon, hung with costly tapestries, and furnished in the most expensive style, sat two ladies at opposite sides of the fire. They were both richly dressed, and one of them (it was Lady Glencore), as she held a screen before her face, displayed a number of valuable rings on her fingers, and a massive bracelet of enamel with a large emerald pendant. The other, not less magnificently attired, wore an imperial portrait suspended by a chain around her neck, and a small knot of white and green ribbon on her shoulder, to denote her quality of a lady in waiting at Court. There was something almost queenly in the haughty dignity of her manner, and an air of command in the tone with which she addressed her companion. It was our acquaintance the Princess Sabloukoff, just escaped from a dinner and reception at the Pitti Palace, and carrying with her some of the proud traditions of the society she had quitted.

“What hour did you tell them they might come, Nina?” asked she.

“Not before midnight, my dear Princess; I wanted to have a talk with you first. It is long since we have met, and I have so much to tell you.”

“Cara mia,” said the other, carelessly, “I know everything already. There is nothing you have done, nothing that has happened to you, that I am not aware of. I might go further, and say that I have looked with secret pleasure at the course of events which to your short-sightedness seemed disastrous.”

“I can scarce conceive that possible,” said the Countess, sighing.

“Naturally enough, perhaps, because you never knew the greatest of all blessings in this life, which is – liberty. Separation from your husband, my dear Nina, did not emancipate you from the tiresome requirements of the world. You got rid of him, to be sure, but not of those who regarded you as his wife. It required the act of courage by which you cut with these people forever, to assert the freedom I speak of.”

“I almost shudder at the contest I have provoked, and had you not insisted on it – ”

“You had gone back again to the old slavery, to be pitied and compassionated, and condoled with, instead of being feared and envied,” said the other; and as she spoke, her flashing eyes and quivering brows gave an expression almost tiger-like to her features. “What was there about your house and its habits distinctive before? What gave you any pre-eminence above those that surround you? You were better looking, yourself; better dressed; your salons better lighted; your dinners more choice, – there was the end of it. Your company was their company, —your associates were theirs. The homage you received to-day had been yesterday the incense of another. There was not a bouquet nor a flattery offered to you that had not its facsimile, doing service in some other quarter. You were ‘one of them,’ Nina, obliged to follow their laws and subscribe to their ideas; and while they traded on the wealth of your attractions, you derived nothing from the partnership but the same share as those about you.”

“And how will it be now?” asked the Countess, half in fear, half in hope.

“How will it be now? I ‘ll tell you. This house will be the resort of every distinguished man, not of Italy, but of the world at large. Here will come the highest of every nation, as to a circle where they can say, and hear, and suggest a thousand things in the freedom of unauthorized intercourse. You will not drain Florence alone, but all the great cities of Europe, of its best talkers and deepest thinkers. The statesman and the author, and the sculptor and the musician, will hasten to a neutral territory, where for the time a kind of equality will prevail. The weary minister, escaping from a Court festival, will come here to unbend; the witty converser will store himself with his best resources for your salons. There will be all the freedom of a club to these men, with the added charm of that fascination your presence will confer; and thus, through all their intercourse, will be felt the ‘parfum de femme,’ as Balzac calls it, which both elevates and entrances.”

“But will not society revenge itself on all this?” “It will invent a hundred calumnious reports and shocking stories; but these, like the criticisms on an immoral play, will only serve to fill the house. Men – even the quiet ones – will be eager to see what it is that constitutes the charm of these gatherings; and one charm there is that never misses its success. Have you ever experienced, in visiting some great gallery, or, still more, some choice collection of works of art, a strange, mysterious sense of awe for objects which you rather knew to be great by the testimony of others, than felt able personally to appreciate? You were conscious that the picture was painted by Raphael, or the cup carved by Cellini, and, independently of all the pleasure it yielded you, arose a sense of homage to its actual worth. The same is the case in society with illustrious men. They may seem slower of apprehension, less ready at reply, less apt to understand; but there they are, Originals, not Copies of greatness. They represent value.”

Have we said enough to show our reader the kind of persuasion by which Madame de Sabloukoff led her friend into this new path? The flattery of the argument was, after all, its success; and the Countess was fascinated by fancying herself something more than the handsomest and the best-dressed woman in Florence. They who constitute a free port of their house will have certainly abundance of trade, and also invite no small amount of enterprise.

A little after midnight the salons began to fill, and from the Opera and the other theatres flocked in all that was pleasant, fashionable, and idle of Florence. The old beau, painted, padded, and essenced, came with the younger and not less elaborately dressed “fashionable,” great in watch-chains and splendid in waistcoat buttons; long-haired artists and moustached hussars mingled with close-shaven actors and pale-faced authors; men of the world, of politics, of finance, of letters, of the turf, – all were there. There was the gossip of the Bourse and the cabinet, the green-room and the stable. The scandal of society, the events of club life, the world’s doings in dinners, divorces, and duels, were all revealed and discussed, amidst the most profuse gratitude to the Countess for coming back again to that society which scarcely survived her desertion.

They were not, it is but fair to say, all that the Princess Sabloukoff had depicted them; but there was still a very fair sprinkling of witty, pleasant talkers. The ease of admission permitted any former intimate to present his friend, and thus at once, on the very first night of receiving, the Countess saw her salons crowded. They smoked, and sang, and laughed, and played écarte, and told good stories. They drew caricatures, imitated well-known actors, and even preachers, talking away with a volubility that left few listeners; and then there was a supper laid out on a table too small to accommodate even by standing, so that each carried away his plate, and bivouacked with others of his friends, here and there, through the rooms.

All was contrived to impart a sense of independence and freedom; all, to convey an impression of “license” special to the place, that made the most rigid unbend, and relaxed the gravity of many who seldom laughed.

As in certain chemical compounds a mere drop of some one powerful ingredient will change the whole property of the mass, eliciting new elements, correcting this, developing that, and, even to the eye, announcing by altered color the wondrous change accomplished, so here the element of womanhood, infinitely small in proportion as it was, imparted a tone and a refinement to this orgie which, without it, had degenerated into coarseness. The Countess’s beautiful niece, Ida Delia Torre, was also there, singing at times with all an artist’s excellence the triumphs of operatic music; at others, warbling over those “canzonettes” which to Italian ears embody all that they know of love of country. How could such a reception be other than successful; or how could the guests, as they poured forth into the silent street at daybreak, do aught but exult that such a house was added to the haunts of Florence, – so lovely a group had returned to adorn their fair city?

In a burst of this enthusiastic gratitude they sang a serenade before they separated; and then, as the closed curtains showed them that the inmates had left the windows, they uttered the last “felice Notte,” and departed.

“And so Wahnsdorf never made his appearance?” said the Princess, as she was once more alone with the Countess.

“I scarcely expected him. He knows the ill-feeling towards his countrymen amongst Italians, and he rarely enters society where he may meet them.”

“It is strange that he should marry one!” said she, half musingly.

“He fell in love, – there’s the whole secret of it,” said the Countess. “He fell in love, and his passion encountered certain difficulties. His rank was one of them, Ida’s indifference another.”

“And how have they been got over?”

“Evaded rather than surmounted. He has only his own consent after all.”

“And Ida, does she care for him?”

“I suspect not; but she will marry him. Pique will often do what affection would fail in. The secret history of the affair is this: There was a youth at Massa, who, while he lived there, made our acquaintance and became even intimate at the Villa: he was a sculptor of some talent, and, as many thought, of considerable promise. I engaged him to give Ida lessons in modelling, and, in this way, they were constantly together. Whether Ida liked him or not I cannot say; but it is beyond a doubt that he loved her. In fact, everything he produced in his art only showed what his mind was full of, – her image was everywhere. This aroused Wahnsdorf’s jealousy, and he urged me strongly to dismiss Greppi, and shut my doors to him. At first I consented, for I had a strange sense, not exactly of dislike, but misgiving, of the youth. I had a feeling towards him that if I attempted to convey to you, it would seem as though in all this affair I had suffered myself to be blinded by passion, not guided by reason. There were times that I felt a deep interest in the youth: his genius, his ardor, his very poverty engaged my sympathy; and then, stronger than all these, was a strange, mysterious sense of terror at sight of him, for he was the very image of one who has worked all the evil of my life.”