Kitabı oku: «The Fortunes Of Glencore», sayfa 32

“Will you not hear me, Glencore, when I say that his slanders have no sting? In the circles wherein he mixes, it is the mere scandal that amuses; for its veracity, there is not one that cares. You, or I, or some one else, supply the name of an actor in a disreputable drama, the plot of which alone interests, not the performer.”

“And am I to sit tamely down under this degradation?” exclaimed Glencore, passionately. “I have never subscribed to this dictation. There is little, indeed, of life left to me, but there is enough, perhaps, to vindicate myself against men of this stamp. You shall take him a message from me; you shall tell him by what accident I overheard his discoveries.”

“My dear Glencore, there are graver interests, far worthier cares, than any this man’s name can enter into, which should now engage you.”

“I say he shall have my provocation, and that within an hour!” cried Glencore, wildly.

“You would give this man and his words a consequence that neither have ever possessed,” said Upton, in a mild and subdued tone. “Remember, Glencore, when I left with you this morning that paper of Stubber’s it was with a distinct understanding that other and wiser thoughts than those of vengeance were to occupy your attention. I never scrupled to place it in your hands; I never hesitated about confiding to you what in a lawyer’s phrase would be a proof against you. When an act of justice was to be done, I would not stain it by the faintest shadow of coercion. I left you free, I leave you still free, from everything but the dictates of your own honor.”

Glencore made no reply, but the conflict of his thoughts seemed to agitate him greatly.

“The man who has pursued a false path in life,” said Upton, calmly, “has need of much courage to retrace his steps; but courage is not the quality you fail in, Glencore, so that I appeal to you with confidence.”

“I have need of courage,” muttered Glencore; “you say truly. What was it the doctor said this morning, – aneurism?”

Upton moved his head with an inclination barely perceptible.

“What a Nemesis there is in nature,” said Glencore, with a sickly attempt to smile, “that passion should beget malady! I never knew, physically speaking, that I had a heart – till it was broken. So that,” resumed he, in a more agreeable tone, “death may ensue at any moment – on the least excitement?”

“He warned you gravely on that point,” said Upton, cautiously.

“How strange that I should have come through that trial of an hour ago! It was not that the struggle did not move me. I could have torn that fellow limb from limb, Upton, if I had but the strength! But see,” cried he, feebly, “what a poor wretch I am; I cannot close these fingers!” and he held out a worn and clammy hand as he spoke. “Do with me as you will,” said he, after a pause; “I ought to have followed your counsels long ago!”

Upton was too subtle an anatomist of human motives to venture by even the slightest word to disturb a train of thought which any interference could only damage. As the other still continued to meditate, and, by his manner and look, in a calmer and more reflective spirit, the wily diplomatist moved noiselessly away, and left him alone.

CHAPTER LIII. A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME

From the gorgeous halls of the Pitti Palace down to the humblest chamber in Camaldole, Florence was a scene of rejoicing. As night closed in, the crowds seemed only to increase, and the din and clamor to grow louder. It seemed as though festivity and joy had overflowed from the houses, filling the streets with merry-makers. In the clear cold air, groups feasted, and sang, and danced, all mingling and intermixing with a freedom that showed how thoroughly the spirit of pleasure-seeking can annihilate the distinctions of class. The soiled and tattered mummer leaned over the carriage-door and exchanged compliments with the masked duchess within. The titled noble of a dozen quarterings stopped to pledge a merry company who pressed him to drain a glass of Monte Pulciano with them. There was a perfect fellowship between those whom fortune had so widely separated, and the polished accents of high society were heard to blend with the quaint and racy expressions of the “people.”

Theatres and palaces lay open, all lighted “a giorno.” The whole population of the city surged and swayed to and fro like a mighty sea in motion, making the air resound the while with a wild mixture of sounds, wherein music and laughter were blended. Amid the orgie, however, not an act, not a word of rudeness, disturbed the general content. It was a season of universal joy, and none dared to destroy the spell of pleasure that presided.

Our task is not to follow the princely equipages as they rolled in unceasing tides within the marble courts, nor yet to track the strong flood that poured through the wide thoroughfares in all the wildest exuberance of their joy.

Our business is with two travellers, who, well weary of being for hours a-foot, and partly sated with pleasure, sat down to rest themselves on a bench beside the Arno.

“It is glorious fooling, that must be owned, Billy,” said Charles Massy, “and the spirit is most contagious. How little have you or I in common with these people! We scarce can catch the accents of the droll allusions, we cannot follow the strains of their rude songs, and yet we are carried away like the rest to feel a wild enjoyment in all this din, and glitter, and movement. How well they do it, too!”

“That’s all by rayson of concentration,” said ‘Billy, gravely. “They are highly charged with fun. The ould adage says, ‘Non semper sunt Saturnalia,’ – It is not every day Morris kills a cow.”

“Yet it is by this very habit of enjoyment that they know how to be happy.”

“To be sure it is,” cried Billy; “they have a ritual for it which we have n’t; as Cicero tells us, ‘In jucundis nullum periculum.’ But ye see we have no notion of any amusement without a dash of danger through it, if not even cruelty!”

“The French know how to reconcile the two natures; they are brave, and light-hearted too.”

“And the Irish, Mister Charles, – the Irish especially,” said Billy, proudly; “for I was alludin’ to the English in what I said last. The ‘versatile ingenium’ is all our own.

 
He goes into a tent and he spends half a-crown,
Comes out, meets a friend, and for love knocks him down.
 

There ‘s an elegant philosophy in that, now, that a Saxon would never see! For it is out of the very fulness of the heart, ye may remark, that Pat does this, just as much as to say, ‘I don’t care for the expense!’ He smashes a skull just as he would a whole dresser of crockery-ware! There’s something very grand in that recklessness.”

The tone of the remark, and a certain wild energy of his manner, showed that poor Billy’s faculties were slightly under the influences of the Tuscan grape; and the youth smiled at sight of an excess so rare.

“How hard it must be,” said Massy, “to go back to the workaday routine of life after one of these outbursts, – to resume not alone the drudgery, but all the slavish observances that humble men yield to great ones!”

“‘Tis what Bacon says, ‘There’s nothing so hard as unlearnin’ anything;’ and the proof is how few of us ever do it! We always go on mucin’ old thoughts with new, – puttin’ different kinds of wine into the same glass, and then wonderin’ we are not invigorated!”

“You ‘re in a mood for moralizing to-night, I see, Billy,” said the other, smiling.

“The levities of life always puts me on that thrack, just as too bright a day reminds me to take out an umbrella with me.”

“Yet I do not see that all your observation of the world has indisposed you to enjoy it, or that you take harsher views of life the closer you look at it.”

“Quite the reverse; the more I see of mankind, the more I ‘m struck with the fact that the very wickedest and worst can’t get rid of remorse! ‘Tis something out of a man’s nature entirely – something that dwells outside of him – sets him on to commit a crime; and then he begins to rayson and dispute with the temptation, just like one keepin’ bad company, and listenin’ to impure notions and evil suggestions day after day; as he does this, he gets to have a taste for that kind of low society, – I mane with his own bad thoughts, – till at last every other ceases to amuse him. Look! what’s that there; where are they goin’ with all the torches there?” cried he, suddenly, springing up and pointing to a dense crowd that passed along the street. It was a band of music, dressed in a quaint mediaeval costume, on its way to serenade some palace.

“Let us follow and listen to them, Billy,” said the youth; and they arose and joined the throng.

Following in the wake of the dense mass, they at last reached the gates of a great palace, and after some waiting gained access to the spacious courtyard. The grim old statues and armorial bearings shone in the glare of a hundred torches, and the deep echoes rang with the brazen voices of the band as, pent up within the quadrangle, the din of a large orchestra arose. On a great terrace overhead numerous figures were grouped, – indistinctly seen from the light of the salons within, – but whose mysterious movements completed the charm of a very interesting picture.

Some wrapped in shawls to shroud them from the night air, some, less cautiously emerging from the rooms within, leaned over the marble balustrade and showed their jewelled arms in the dim hazy light, while around and about them gay uniforms and costumes abounded. As Billy gave himself up to the excitement of the music, young Massy, more interested by the aspect of the scene, gazed unceasingly at the balcony. There was just that shadowy indistinctness in the whole that invested it with a kind of romantic interest, and he could weave stories and incidents from those whose figures passed and repassed before him. He fancied that in their gestures he could trace many meanings, and as the bent-down heads approached, and their hands touched, he fashioned many a tale in his own mind of moving fortunes.

“And see, she comes again to that same dark angle of the terrace,” muttered he to himself, as, shrouded in a large mantle and with a half mask on her features, a tall and graceful figure passed into the place he spoke of. “She looks like one among, but not of, them. How much of heart-weariness is there in that attitude; how full is it of sad and tender melancholy! Would that I could see her face! My life on’t that it is beautiful! There, she is tearing up her bouquet; leaf by leaf the rose-leaves are falling, as though one by one hopes are decaying in her heart.” He pushed his way through the dense throng till he gained a corner of the court where a few leaves and flower-stems yet strewed the ground; carefully gathering up these, he crushed them in his hand, and seemed to feel as though a nearer tie bound him to the fair unknown. How little ministers to the hope; how infinitely less again will feed the imagination of a young heart!

Between them now there was, to his appreciation, some mysterious link. “Yes,” he said to himself, “true, I stand unknown, unnoticed; yet it is to me of all the thousands here she could reveal what is passing in that heart! I know it, I feel it! She has a sorrow whose burden I might help to bear. There is cruelty, or treachery, or falsehood arrayed against her; and through all the splendor of the scene – all the wild gayety of the orgie – some spectral image never leaves her side! I would stake existence on it that I have read her aright!”

Of all the intoxications that can entrance the human faculties, there is none so maddening as that produced by giving full sway to an exuberant imagination. The bewilderment resists every effort of reason, and in its onward course carries away its victims with all the force of a mountain torrent. A winding stair, long unused and partly dilapidated, led to the end of the terrace where she stood, and Massy, yielding to some strange impulse, slowly and noiselessly crept up this till he gained a spot only a few yards removed from her. The dark shadow of the building almost completely concealed his figure, and left him free to contemplate her unnoticed.

Some event of interest within had withdrawn all from the terrace save herself; the whole balcony was suddenly deserted, and she alone remained, to all seeming lost to the scene around her. It was then that she removed her mask, and suffering it to fall back on her neck, rested her head pensively on her hand. Massy bent over eagerly to try and catch sight of her face; the effort he made startled her, she looked round, and he cried out, “Ida – Ida! My heart could not deceive me!” In another instant he had climbed the balcony and was beside her.

“I thought we had parted forever, Sebastian,” said she; “you told me so on the last night at Massa.”

“And so I meant when I said it,” cried he; “nor is our meeting now of my planning. I came to Florence, it is true, to see, but not to speak with you, ere I left Europe forever. For three entire days I have searched the city to discover where you lived, and chance – I have no better name for it – chance has led me hither.”

“It is an unkind fortune that has made us meet again,” said she, in a voice of deep melancholy.

“I have never known fortune in any other mood,” said he, fiercely. “When clouds show me the edge of their silver linings, I only prepare myself for storm and hurricane.”

“I know you have endured much,” said she, in a voice of deeper sadness.

“You know but little of what I have endured,” rejoined he, sternly. “You saw me taunted, indeed, with my humble calling, insulted for my low birth, expelled ignominiously from a house where my presence had been sought for; and yet all these, grievous enough, are little to other evils I have had to bear.”

“By what unhappy accident, what mischance, have you made her your enemy, Sebastian? She would not even suffer me to speak to you. She went so far as to tell me that there was a reason for the dislike, – one which, if she could reveal, I would never question.”

“How can I tell?” cried he, angrily. “I was born, I suppose, under an evil star; for nothing prospers with me.”

“But can you even guess her reasons?” said she, eagerly.

“No, except it be the presumption of one in my condition daring to aspire to one in yours; and that, as the world goes, would be reason enough. It is probable, too, that I did not state these pretensions of mine over delicately. I told her, with a frankness that was not quite acceptable, I was one who could not speak of birth or blood. She did not like the coarse word I applied to myself, and I will not repeat it; and she ventured to suggest that, had there not appeared some ambiguity in her own position, I could never have so far forgotten mine as to advance such pretensions – ”

“Well, and then?” cried the girl, eagerly.

“Well, and then,” said he, deliberately, “I told her I had heard rumors of the kind she alluded to, but to me they carried no significance; that it was for you I cared. The accidents of life around you had no influence on my choice; you might be all that the greatest wealth and highest blood could make you, or as poor and ignoble as myself, without any change in my affections. ‘These,’ said she, ‘are the insulting promptings of that English breeding which you say has mixed with your blood, and if for no other cause would make me distrust you.’

“‘Stained as it may be,’ said I, ‘that same English blood is the best pride I possess.’ She grew pale with passion as I said this, but never spoke a word; and there we stood, staring haughtily at each other, till she pointed to the door, and so I left her. And now, Ida, who is she that treats me thus disdainfully? I ask you not in anger, for I know too well how the world regards such as me to presume to question its harsh injustice. But tell me, I beseech you, that she is one to whose station these prejudices are the fitting accompaniments, and let me feel that it is less myself as the individual that she wrongs, than the class I belong to is that which she despises. I can better bear this contumely when I know that it is an instinct.”

“If birth and blood can justify a prejudice, a Princess of the house of Delia Torre might claim the privilege,” said the girl, haughtily. “No family of the North, at least, will dispute with our own in lineage; but there are other causes which may warrant all that she feels towards you even more strongly, Sebastian. This boast of your English origin, this it is which has doubtless injured you in her esteem. Too much reason has she had to cherish the antipathy! Betrayed into a secret marriage by an Englishman who represented himself as of a race noble as her own, she was deserted and abandoned by him afterwards. This is the terrible mystery which I never dared to tell you, and which led us to a life of seclusion at Massa. This is the source of that hatred towards all of a nation which she must ever associate with the greatest misfortunes of her life! And from this unhappy event was she led to make me take that solemn oath that I spoke of, never to link my fortunes with one of that hated land.”

“But you told me that you had not made the pledge,” said he, wildly.

“Nor had I then, Sebastian; but since we last met, worked on by solicitation, I could not resist; tortured by a narrative of such sorrows as I never listened to before, I yielded, and gave my promise.”

“It matters little to me!” said he, gloomily; “a barrier the more or the less can be of slight moment when there rolls a wide sea between us! Had you ever loved me, such a pledge had been impossible.”

“It was you yourself, Sebastian, told me we were never to meet again,” rejoined she.

“Better that we had never done so!” muttered he. “Nay, perhaps I am wrong,” added he, fiercely; “this meeting may serve to mark how little there ever was between us!”

“Is this cruelty affected, Sebastian, or is it real?”

“It cannot be cruel to echo your own words. Besides,” said he, with an air of mockery in the words, “she who lives in this gorgeous palace, surrounded with all the splendors of life, can have little complaint to make against the cruelty of fortune!”

“How unlike yourself is all this!” cried she. “You of all I have ever seen or known, understood how to rise above the accidents of fate, placing your happiness and your ambitions in a sphere where mere questions of wealth never entered. What can have so changed you?”

Before he could reply, a sudden movement in the crowd beneath attracted the attention of both, and a number of persons who had filled the terrace now passed hurriedly into the salons, where, to judge from the commotion, an event of some importance had occurred. Ida lost not a moment in entering, when she was met by the words: “It is she, Nina herself is ill; some mask – a stranger, it would seem – has said something or threatened something.” In fact, she had been carried to her room in strong convulsions; and while some were in search of medical aid for her, others, not less eagerly, were endeavoring to detect the delinquent.

From the gay and brilliant picture of festivity which was presented but a few minutes back, what a change now came over the scene! Many hurried away at once, shocked at even a momentary shadow on the sunny road of their existence; others as anxiously pressed on to recount the incident elsewhere; some, again, moved by curiosity or some better prompting, exerted themselves to investigate what amounted to a gross violation of the etiquette of a carnival; and thus, in the salons, on the stairs, and in the court itself, the greatest bustle and confusion prevailed. At length some suggested that the gate of the palace should be closed, and none suffered to depart without unmasking. The motion was at once adopted, and a small knot of persons, the friends of the Countess, assumed the task of the scrutiny.

Despite complaints and remonstrances as to the inconvenience and delay thus occasioned, they examined every carriage as it passed out. None, however, but faces familiar to the Florentine world were to be met with; the well-known of every ball and fête were there, and if a stranger presented himself, he was sure to be one for whom some acquaintance could bear testimony.

At a fire in one of the smaller salons stood a small group, of which the Duc de Brignolles and Major Scaresby formed a part. Sentiments of a very different order had detained these two individuals, and while the former was deeply moved by the insult offered to the Countess, the latter felt an intense desire to probe the circumstance to the bottom.

“Devilish odd it is!” cried Scaresby; “here we have been this last hour and a half turning a whole house out of the windows, and yet there’s no one to tell us what it’s all for, what it ‘s all about!”

“Pardon, monsieur,” said the Duke, severely. “We know that a lady whose hospitality we have been accepting has retired from her company insulted. It is very clearly our duty that this should not pass unpunished.”

“Oughtn’t we to have some clearer insight into what constituted the insult? It may have been a practical joke, – a mauvaise plaisanterie, Duke.”

“We have no claim to any confidence not extended to us, sir,” said the Frenchman. “To me it is quite sufficient that the Countess feels aggrieved.”

“Not but we shall cut an absurd figure to-morrow, when we own that we don’t know what we were so indignant about.”

“Only so many of us as have characters for the ‘latest intelligence.’”

To this sally there succeeded a somewhat awkward pause, Scaresby occupying himself with thoughts of some perfectly safe vengeance.

“I shouldn’t wonder if it was that Count Marsano – that fellow who used to be about the Nina long ago – come back again. He was at Como this summer, and made many inquiries after his old love!”

A most insulting stare of defiance was the only reply the old Duke could make to what he would have been delighted to resent as a personal affront.

“Marsano is a mauvais drôle,” said a Russian; “and if a woman slighted him, or he suspected that she did, he’s the very man to execute a vengeance of the kind.”

“I should apply a harsher epithet to a man capable of such conduct,” said the Duke.

“He ‘d not take it patiently, Duke,” said the other.

“It is precisely in that hope, sir, that I should employ it,” said the Duke.

Again was the conversation assuming a critical turn, and again an interval of ominous silence succeeded.

“There is but one carriage now in the court, your Excellency,” said the servant, addressing the Duke in a low voice, “and the gentleman inside appears to be seriously ill. It might be better, perhaps, not to detain him.”

“Of course not,” said the Duke; “but stay, I will go down myself.”

There were still a considerable number of persons on foot in the court when the Duke descended, but only one equipage remained, – a hired carriage, – at the open door of which a servant was standing, holding a glass of water for his master.

“Can I be of any use to your master?” said the Duke, approaching. “Is he ill?”

“I fear he has burst a blood-vessel, sir,” said the man. “He is too weak to answer me.”

“Who is it, – what ‘s his name?”

“I am not able to tell you, sir; I only accompanied him from the hotel.”

“Let us have a doctor at once; he appears to be dying,” said the Duke, as he placed his fingers on the sick man’s wrist. “Let some one go for a physician.”

“There is one here,” cried a voice. “I’m a doctor;” and Billy Traynor pushed his way to the spot. “Come, Master Charles, get into the coach and help me to lift him out.”

Young Massy obeyed, and not without difficulty they succeeded at last in disengaging the almost lifeless form of a man whose dark domino was perfectly saturated with fresh blood; his half mask still covered his face, and, to screen his features from the vulgar gaze of the crowd, they suffered it to remain there.

Up the wide stairs and into a spacious salon they now carried the figure, whose drooping head and hanging limbs gave little signs of life. They placed him on a sofa, and Traynor, with a ready hand, untied the mask and removed it. “Merciful Heavens,” cried he, “it’s my Lord himself!”

The youth bent down, gazed for a few seconds at the corpse-like face, and fell fainting to the floor.

“My Lord Glencore himself!” said the Duke, who was himself an old and attached friend.

“Hush! not a word,” whispered Traynor; “he ‘s rallyin’ – he ‘s comin’ to; don’t utter a syllable.”

Slowly and languidly the dying man raised his eyelids, and gazed at each of those around him. From their faces he turned his gaze to the chamber, viewing the walls and the ceiling all in turn; and then, in an accent barely audible, he said, “Where am I?”

“Amongst friends, who love and will cherish you, dear Glencore,” said the Duke, affectionately.

“Ah, Brignolles, I remember you. And this, – who is this?”

“Traynor, my Lord, – Billy Traynor, that will never leave you while he can serve you!”

“Whose tears are those upon my hand, – I feel them hot and burning,” said the sick man; and Billy stepped back, that the light should fall upon the figure that knelt beside him.

“Don’t cry, poor fellow,” said Glencore; “it must be a hard world, or you have many better and dearer friends than I could have ever been to you. Who is this?”

Billy tried, but could not answer.

“Tell him, if you know who it is; see how wild and excited it has made him,” cried the Duke; for, stretching out both hands, Glencore had caught the boy’s face on either side, and continued to gaze on it, in wild eagerness. “It’ is – it is!” cried he, pressing it to his bosom, and kissing the forehead over and over again.

“Whom does he fancy it? Whom does he suspect?”

“This is – look, Brignolles,” cried the dying man, in a voice already thick with a death-rattle, – “this is the seventh Lord Viscount Glencore. I declare it. And now – ”

He fell back, and never spoke more. A single shudder shook his feeble frame, and he was dead.

We have had occasion once before in this veracious history to speak of the polite oblivion Florentine society so well understands to throw over the course of events which might cloud, even for a moment, the sunny surface of its enjoyment. No people, so far as we know, have greater gifts in this way; to shroud the disagreeables of life in decent shadow – to ignore or forget them is their grand prerogative.

Scarcely, therefore, had three weeks elapsed, than the terrible catastrophe at the Palazzo della Torre was totally consigned to the bygones; it ceased to be thought or spoken of, and was as much matter of remote history as an incident in the times of one of the Medici. Too much interested in the future to waste time on the past, they launched into speculations as to whether the Countess would be likely to marry again; what change the late event might effect in the amount of her fortune; and how far her position in the world might be altered by the incident. He who, in the ordinary esteem of society, would have felt less acutely than his neighbors for Glencore’s sad fate, – Upton, – was in reality deeply and sincerely affected. The traits which make a consummate man of the world – one whose prerogative it is to appreciate others, and be able to guide and influence their actions – are, in truth, very high and rare gifts, and imply resources of fine sentiment as fully as stores of intellectual wealth. Upton sorrowed over Glencore as for one whose noble nature had been poisoned by an impetuous temper, and over whose best instincts an ungovernable self-esteem had ever held the mastery. They had been friends almost from boyhood, and the very worldliest of men can feel the bitterness of that isolation in which the “turn of life” too frequently commences. Such friendships are never made in later life. We lend our affections when young on very small security, and though it is true we are occasionally unfortunate, we do now and then make a safe investment. No men are more prone to attach an exaggerated value to early friendships than those who, stirred by strong ambitions, and animated by high resolves, have played for the great stakes in the world’s lottery. Too much immersed in the cares and contests of life to find time to contract close personal attachments, they fall back upon the memory of school or college days to supply the want of their hearts. There is a sophistry, too, that seduces them to believe that then, at least, they were loved for what they were, for qualities of their nature, not for accidents of station, or the proud rewards of success. There is also another and a very strange element in the pleasure such memories afford. Our early attachments serve as points of departure by which we measure the distance we have travelled in life. “Ay,” say we, “we were schoolfellows; I remember how he took the lead of me in this or that science, how far behind he left me in such a thing; and yet look at us now!” Upton had very often to fall back upon similar recollections; neither his school nor his college life had been remarkable for distinction; but it was always perceived that every attainment he achieved was such as would be available in after life. Nor did he ever burden himself with the toils of scholarship while there lay within his reach stores of knowledge that might serve to contest the higher and greater prizes that he had already set before his ambition.

But let us return to himself as, alone and sorrow-struck, he sat in his room of the Hôtel d’Italie. Various cares and duties consequent on Glencore’s death had devolved entirely upon him. Young Massy had suddenly disappeared from Florence on the morning after the funeral, and was seen no more, and Upton was the only one who could discharge any of the necessary duties of such a moment. The very nature of the task thus imposed upon him had its own depressing influence on his mind; the gloomy pomp of death – the terrible companionship between affliction and worldliness – the tear of the mourner – the heart-broken sigh drowned in the sharp knock of the coffin-maker. He had gone through it all, and sat moodily pondering over the future, when Madame de Sabloukoff entered.