If the night which followed the interview of the Père Massoni with Carrol was one of deep anxiety, the morning did not bring any relief to his cares. His first duty was to ask after Fitzgerald. The youth had slept little, but lay tranquil and uncomplaining, and to all seeming indifferent either as to the strange place or the strange faces around him. The keen-eyed servant, Giacomo, himself an humble member of the order, quickly detected that he was suffering under some mental shock, and that the case was one where the mere physician could afford but little benefit.
‘He lies there quiet as a child,’ said he, ‘never speaking nor moving, his eyelids half drooped over his eyes, and save that now and then, at long intervals, he breathes a low, faint sigh, you would scarce believe he was alive.’
‘I will see him,’ said the Père, as he gently opened the door, and stole noiselessly across the room. A faint streak of light peering between the drawn window-curtains, fell directly on the youth’s face, showing it pale and emotionless, as Giacomo described it. As the Père seated himself by the bedside, he purposely made a slight noise, to attract the other’s attention, but Gerald did not notice him, not even turning a look toward him. Massoni laid his finger on the pulse, the action was weak but regular; nothing to denote fever or excitement, only the evidence of great exhaustion or debility.
‘I have come to hear how you have rested,’ said the Père, in an accent he could render soft as a woman’s, ‘and to welcome you to Rome.’
A faint, very faint, smile was all the reply to this speech.
‘I am aware that you have gone through much suffering and peril,’ continued the Père, ‘but with rest and kind care you will soon be well again. You are among friends, who are devoted to you.’
A gentle movement of the brows, as if in assent, replied.
‘It may be that speaking would distress you; perhaps even my own words fatigue you. If so I will be satisfied to come and sit silently beside you, till you are stronger and better.’
‘Si—si,’ muttered Gerald faintly, and at the same time he essayed to smile as it were in recognition.
A quick convulsive twitch of impatience passed across the Père’s pale face, but so rapidly that it seemed a spasm, and the features were the next moment calm as before; and now Massoni sat silently gazing on the tranquil lineaments before him. Among the various studies of his laborious life medicine had not been neglected, and now he addressed himself to examine the condition and study the symptoms of the youth. The case was not of much bodily ailment, at least save in the exhaustion which previous illness had left. There was nothing like malady, but there were signs of a mischief far deeper, more subtle, and less curable than mere physical ills. The look of vacancy—the half-meaning smile—the dull languor, not alone in feature but in the way he lay—all presented matter for grave and weighty fears. The very presence of these signs, unaccompanied by ailment, gave a gloomier aspect to the case, and led the Père to reflect whether such traits had any connection with descent. The strong resemblance which the young man bore to the Stuarts—and there were few families where the distinctive traits were more marked—induced Massoni to consider the question with reference to them. They are indeed a race whose wayward impulses and rash resolves took oftentimes but little guidance of reason; but these were mere signs of eccentricity and not insanity. But might not the one be precursor to the other; might not the frail judgment, which sufficed for the every-day cares of life, utterly give way in seasons of greater trial? Thus reasoning and communing with himself he sat till the hour struck which apprised him of his audience with the Cardinal.
It was not yet the season when Rome was filled by its higher classes, and Massoni could repair to the palace of the Cardinal without any of the secrecy observable at other periods. Still he deemed it more in accordance with the humility he affected to seek admission by a small garden gate, which opened on the Pincian hill. The little portal admitted him into a garden such as only Italy possesses. The gardens of England are unrivalled for their peculiar excellence, for the exquisite flavour of their fruit, and in their perfection of order and neatness they stand unequalled in the world; the trim quaintness of the Dutch taste has also its special beauty, and nowhere can be seen such gorgeous colouring in flower-pots, such splendour of tulip and ranunculus: but there is in Italy a rich blending of culture and wildness—a mingled splendour and simplicity, just as in the great halls of the marble palace on the Neva, where the haughtiest noble in his diamond pelisse, stands side by side with the simple Boyard in his furs: so in the * golden land,’ the cactus and the mimosa, the orange and the pear-tree, the cedar of Lebanon and the stone-pine of the north, are commingled and interleaved; all signs of a soil which can supply nourishment to the rarest and most delicate, as well as to the hardiest of plants.
In this lovely wilderness, with many a group in marble, many a beautifully-carved fountain, many an ornamental shrine, half hidden in its leafy recesses, the Père now walked, screening his steps as he went, from that great range of windows which opened on a grand terrace—a precaution rather the result of habit than called for by the circumstance of the time. A fish-pond of some extent, with a small island> occupied the centre of the garden; the island itself being ornamented by a beautiful little shrine dedicated to our Lady of Rimini, the birth-place of the Cardinal. To this sacred spot his Eminence was accustomed to repair for secret worship each morning of his life. As a measure of respectful reverence for the great man’s devotions, the place was studiously secluded from all intrusion, and even strangers—admitted, as at rare intervals they were, to visit the gardens—were never suffered to invade the sacred precincts of the island.
A strangely contrived piece of mechanism appended to the little wicket that formed the entrance always sufficed to show if his Eminence was engaged in prayer, and consequently removed from all pretext of interruption. This was an apparatus, by which the face of a beautifully painted Madonna became suddenly covered by a veil, a signal that none of the Cardinal’s nearest of blood would have dared to violate. It was, indeed, to the hours of daily seclusion thus piously passed the Cardinal owed that character for sanctity which eminently distinguished him in the Church. A day never went over in which he did not devote at the least an hour to this sacred duty, and the air of absorption, as he repaired to the shrine, and the look of intense pre-occupation he brought away, vouched for the depth of his pious musings.
As Massoni arrived at the narrow causeway which led over to the island, he perceived that the veil of the Madonna was lowered. He knew, therefore, at once that the Cardinal was there, and he stopped to consider what course he should adopt, whether to loiter about the garden till his Eminence should appear, or repair to the palace and await him. The Père knew that the Cardinal was to leave Rome by midday, to reach Albano to dinner, and he mused over the shortness of the time their interview must last.
‘This is no common emergency,’ thought he at last; ‘here is a case fraught with the most tremendous consequences. If this scheme be engaged in, the whole of Europe may soon be in arms—the greatest convulsion that ever shook the Continent may result; and out of the struggle who is to foresee what principles may be the victors!
‘I will go to him at once,’ said he resolutely. ‘Events succeed each other too rapidly nowadays for more delay. The “Terror” in France has once more turned men’s minds to the peaceful security of a monarchy. Let us profit by the moment’; and with this he traversed the narrow bridge and reached the island.
A thick copse of ornamental planting screened the front of the little shrine. Hastily passing through this, he stood within a few yards of the building, when his steps were quickly arrested by the sound of a voice whose accents could not be mistaken for the Cardinal’s. There was besides something distinctively foreign in the pronunciation that marked the speaker for a stranger. Curious to ascertain who might be the intruder in a spot so sacred, Massoni stepped noiselessly through the brushwood, and gained a little loop-holed aperture beside the altar, from which the whole interior of the shrine could be seen. Seated on one of the marble steps below the altar was the Cardinal, a loose dressing-gown of rich fur wrapped round him, and a cap of the same material on his head. Directly in front of him, and also seated on the pedestal of a column, was a man in a Carthusian robe, patched and discoloured, and showing many signs of age and poverty. The wearer, however, was rubicund and jovial-looking, though the angles of the mouth were somewhat dragged, and the wrinkles at the eyes were deep-worn. The general expression, however, was that of one whose nature accepted the struggles of life manfully and cheerfully. It was not till after some minutes of close scrutiny that Massoni could recall the features, but at length he remembered that it was the well-known Carthusian friar, George Kelly, the former companion of Prince Charles Edward. If their positions in life were widely different, Kelly did not suffer the disparity to influence his manner, but talked with all the ease and familiarity of an equal.
Whatever interest the scene might have had for Massoni was speedily increased by the first words which met his ears. It was the Cardinal who said—
‘I own to you, Kelly, until what you have told me I had put little faith in the whole story of this youth; and there is then really such?’
‘There is, or at least there was, your Eminence. I remember as well as if it was yesterday the evening he came to the palace to see the Prince. A poor countryman of my own, a Carthusian, brought him, and took him back again to the college. The boy was afterward sent to a villa somewhere near Orvieto.’
‘Was the youth acknowledged by his Royal Highness as his son?’ asked the Cardinal.
‘The Prince never spoke of him to me till the day before his death. He then said, “Can you find out that Carthusian for me, Kelly?—I should like to speak with him.” I told him that he had long since left Rome and even Italy. The last tidings of him came from Ireland, where he was living as a dependant on some reduced family.
‘"There is no time to fetch him from Ireland,” said his Highness; “and yet, Kelly, I ‘d give a thousand pounds that he were here.” He then asked me if I remembered a certain boy, dressed like a colleger of the Jesuits, who came one night long ago to the palace with this same Carthusian.
‘I said, yes; that though his Royal Highness believed that I was away from Rome that night, I came back post-haste from Albano; and finding myself in one of the corridors, I waited till Fra Luke came out from his interview, with the boy beside him.
‘"True, true, Kelly; I meant you to have known nothing of this visit. So then you saw the boy? What thought you of him?”
‘"I saw and marked him well, for his fair hair and skin were so distinctively English, they made a deep impression upon me.”
‘"He had the mouth, too, Kelly—a little pouting and over full-lipped. Did you mark that?”
‘"No, sire; I did not observe him so closely.”
‘"How poor and ragged the child was! his very shoes were broken. Did you see his shoes?—and that frail bit of serge was all his covering against the keen blast. O George,” cried he, as his lip shook with emotion, “what would you say if that poor boy, all wretched and wayworn as you saw him, were the true heir of a throne, and that the proudest in Europe? What a lesson for human greatness that! It was a scurvy trick you played me that night, sir,” said he, quickly changing, for his moods were ever thus, and you never could guess how long any theme would engage him—“a scurvy trick, sir, to pry into what your master desired you should not know. I had my own good reasons for what I did, and it ill became you to contravene them; but it was like your cloth—ay, sirrah, it was the trick of all your kind.”
‘Out of this he fell a-weeping over the fallen fortunes of his house, asking again and again if history contained anything its equal; and saying that other dynasties had fallen through their crimes and cruelties, but that his house had been ruined by trustfulness and generosity; and so he forgot the boy and all about him.’
‘And think you it was to this youth that his Royal Highness bequeathed the sum mentioned in his will, together with his George, the Grand Cross of Malta, and the St. John of Jerusalem, for so the Cardinal York tells me the bequest runs?’
‘As to that I can say nothing,’ Kelly replied.
‘I have heard,’ said the Cardinal again, ‘that in a sealed letter to his brother York the Prince acknowledges this boy as his son, born in wedlock, his mother being of an ancient and noble house.’ Then quickly changing his tone, he asked, ‘How are we to find him, Kelly? Do you believe that he still lives?’
‘I have no means of knowing; but if I wished to trace a man, not merely in Europe, but through the globe itself, I am aware of but one police to trust to.’
‘And that?’
‘The Jesuits: they are everywhere; and everywhere cautious, painstaking, and trustworthy; they are well skilled in pursuits like these; and even when they fail—and they seldom fail—they never compromise those who employ them.’
‘Well,’ said the Cardinal, ‘they have failed here. They have been on the track of this young fellow for years back; and when I tell you that the craftiest of them all, Massoni, has not been able to find a clue to him, what will you say?’
‘Why, that he must be dead and buried, your Eminence,’ broke in Kelly.
‘To that conclusion have I come myself, Fra Kelly. Had he been alive he had come long since to claim this costly inheritance. Seven hundred thousand Roman scudi, the Palazzo Albuquerque, at Albano, with all its splendid pictures and jewels, worth double the whole——’
‘Egad, I had come out of my grave to assert my right to such a bequest,’ said Kelly, laughing. ‘Has the Cardinal York made search for him, your Eminence?’ said he, hastily correcting his levity.
‘The Cardinal York is not likely to disturb himself with such cares; and as the legacy lapses, in default of claimant, to the convent of St. Lazarus of Medina, he probably deems that it will be as well bestowed.’
‘Lazarus will have fallen upon some savory crumbs this time,’ muttered Kelly, whose disposition to jest seemed beyond all his self-control.
‘It was this very day Massoni hoped to have brought me some tidings of the youth, said the Cardinal, rising, ‘and he has not appeared. It must be as you have said, Kelly; the grave has closed over him. There is now, therefore, a great danger to guard against: substitution of some other for him—not by Massoni; he is a man of probity and honour; but he may be imposed on by others. It is a fraud which would well repay all its trouble.’
‘There is but one could detect the trick—that Luke M’Manus, the Carthusian I have mentioned to your Eminence. He knew the boy well, and was intrusted by the Prince to take charge of him; but he is away in Ireland.’
‘But could be fetched, if necessary,’ said Caraffa, half musing, as he moved toward the door.
Massoni did not wait to hear more, but stealthily threading his way through the copse, he gained the garden, and retracing his steps, returned to the convent. Ascending to his chamber by a private stair, he gave his servant orders to say that he was indisposed, and could not receive any one.
‘So, then, your Eminence,’ said he bitterly, as he sank into a chair, ‘you would underplot me here. Let us see who can play his cards best.’
Within less than half an hour after his arrival at home, Massini received an order from the Cardinal to repair to the palace. It was a verbal message, and couched in terms to make the communication seem scarcely important.
Massoni smiled as he prepared to obey; it amused him to think, that in a game of craft and subtlety his Eminence should dare to confront him, and yet this was evidently his policy.
The Cardinal’s carriage stood ready horsed in the courtyard as the Père passed through, and a certain air of impatience in the servants showed that the time of departure had been inconveniently delayed.
‘That thunder-storm will break over us before we are half way across the Campagna,’ cried one.
‘We were ordered for one, and it is now past three, and though the horses were taken from their feed to get in readiness, here we are still.’
‘And all because a Jesuit is at his devotions!’
The look of haughty rebuke Massoni turned upon them as he caught these words, made them shrink back abashed and terrified; and none knew when nor in what shape might come the punishment for this insolence.
‘You have forgotten an appointment, Père Massoni,’ said the Cardinal as the other entered his chamber, with a deep and respectful reverence, ‘an appointment too, of your own making. There is an opinion abroad, that we Cardinals are men of leisure, whose idle hours are at the discretion of all; I had hoped, that to this novel theory the Père Massoni would not have been a convert.’
‘Nor am I, your Eminence. It would ill become one who wears such a frock as this to deny the rights of discipline and the benefits of obedience.’
‘But you are late, sir?’
‘If I am so, your Eminence will pardon me when I give the reason. The entire of last night was passed by me in watching for the arrival of a certain youth, who did not come till nigh daybreak, and even then, so ill, so worn out and exhausted, that I have been in constant care of him ever since.’
‘And he is come—he is actually here,’ cried the Cardinal eagerly.
‘He is, at this moment, in the college.’
‘How have you been able to authenticate his identity,—the rumour goes that he died years ago?’
‘It is a somewhat entangled skein, your Eminence, but will stand the test of unravelment. Intervals there are, indeed, in his story, unfilled up; lapses of time, in which I am left to mere conjecture, but his career is traceable throughout; and I can track him from the days in which he stood an acolyte beside our altars to the hour we now talk in.’
‘It is to your sanguine hopes you have been listening rather than cold reason, Père.’
‘Look at me, Eminence—scan me well, and say, do I look like those who are slaves to their own enthusiasm?’
‘The strongest currents are often calm on the surface.’
The Père sighed heavily, but did not answer.
‘The youth himself, too, may have aided the delusion: he is, probably, one well suited to inspire interest: in a varied and adventurous life, men of this stamp acquire, amid their other worldly gifts, a marvellous power of persuasiveness.’
The Père smiled half sadly.
‘You would tell me, by that smile, Père Massoni, that you are not to be the victim of such seductions; that you understand mankind in a spirit that excludes such error.’
‘Far be it from me to indulge such boastfulness,’ said the other meekly.
‘At all events,’ said the Cardinal, half peevishly, ‘he who has courage and ambition enough to play this game is, doubtless, a fellow of infinite resource and readiness, and will have, at least, plausibility on his side.’
‘Would that it were so!’ exclaimed Massoni eagerly.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Would that he were one who could boldly assert his own proud cause, and vindicate his own high claims; would that he had come through the terrible years of his suffering life with a spirit hardened by trials, and a courage matured by exercise; would, above all, that he had not come from the conflict broken in health, shattered and down-stricken! Ay, sir, this youth of bold pretensions, of winning manners, and persuasive gifts is a poor fellow so stunned by calamity as to be helpless!’
‘Is he dying?’ cried the Cardinal with intense anxiety.
‘It were as well to die as live what he now is!’ said the Père solemnly.
‘Have the doctors seen him?—has Fabrichette been with him?’
‘No, sir. It is no case for their assistance, my own poor skill can teach me so much. His is the malady of the wounded spirit and the injured mind.’
‘Is his reason affected?’ asked Caraffa quickly.
‘I trust not; but it is a case where time and care can be the only physicians.’
‘And so, therefore, falls to the ground the grand edifice you have so long been rearing. The great foundation itself is rotten.’
‘He may recover, sir,’ said Massoni slowly.
‘To what end, I ask you, to what end?’
‘At least to claim a princely heritage,’ said Massoni boldly.
‘Who says so?—of what heritage do you speak? You are surely too wise to put faith in the idle stories men repeat of this or that legacy left by the late Prince.’
‘I know enough, sir, to be sure that I speak on good authority; and I repeat that when this youth can prove his descent, he is the rightful heir to a royal fortune. It may be, that he will have higher and nobler ambitions: he may feel that a great cause is ever worthy a great effort; that the son of a prince cannot accept life on the same humble terms as other men. In short, sir, it may chance that the dream of a poor Jesuit father should become a grand reality.’
‘If all be but as real as the heritage, Massoni,’ said the Cardinal scoffingly, ‘you called it by its true name, when you said “dream.”’
‘Have you, then, not heard of this legacy?’
‘Heard of it! Yes: all Rome heard of it; and, for that matter, his Royal Highness may have left him St. James’s and the royal forest of Windsor.’
‘Your Eminence, then, doubts that there was anything to bequeath?’
‘There is no need to canvass what I doubt. I ‘ll tell you what I know. The rent of the Altieri for the last two years is still unpaid; the servants at Albano have not received their wages, and the royal plate is at this moment pledged in the hands of the Jew Alcaico.’
The Père was silent. The sole effect these stunning tidings had on him was to speculate to what end and with what object the Cardinal said all this. It was not the language he had used a short hour ago with Kelly. Whence, therefore, this change of tone? Why did he now disparage the prospects he had then upheld so highly? These were questions not easily solved in a moment, and Massoni pondered them deeply. The Cardinal had begun with hinting doubts of the youth’s identity, and then he had scoffed at the prospect of his inheritance. Was it that by these he meant to discourage the scheme of which he should have been the head, or was it that some deeper and more subtle plan occupied his mind? And if so, what could it be?
‘I see how I have grieved and disappointed you, Père Massoni,’ said his Eminence, ‘and I regret it. Life is little else than a tale of such reverses.’
The Jesuit’s dark eyes glanced forth a gleam of intense intelligence. It was the light of a sudden thought that flashed across his brain. He remembered that when the Cardinal moralised he meant a treachery, and now he stood on his guard.
‘I had many things to tell your Eminence of Ireland,’ he began in a calm, subdued voice. ‘The priest Carrol has just come from thence, and can speak of events as he has witnessed them. The hatred to England and English rule increases every day, and the great peril is that this animosity may burst forth without guidance or direction. The utmost efforts of the leaders are required to hold the people back.’
‘They never can wish for a fitter moment. England has her hands full, and can scarcely spare a man to repress rebellion in Ireland.’
‘The Irish have not any organisation among them. Remember, your Eminence, that they have been held like a people in slavery: the gentry discredited, the priests insulted. The first efforts of such a race cannot have the force of union or combination. They must needs be desultory and partisan, and if they cannot obtain aid from others, they will speedily be repressed.’
‘What sort of aid?’
‘Arms and money; they have neither. Of men there is no want. Men of military knowledge and skill will also be required; but more even than these, they need the force that foreign sympathy would impart to their cause. Carrol, who knows the country well, says that the bare assurance that Rome looked on the coming struggle with interest would be better than ten thousand soldiers in their ranks. Divided, as they are, by seas from all the world, they need the encouragement of this sympathy to assure them of success.’
‘They are brave, are they not?’
‘Their courage has never been surpassed.’
‘And true and faithful to each other?’ ‘A fidelity that cannot be shaken.’
‘Have they no jealousies or petty rivalries to divide them?’
‘None—or next to none. The deadly hatred to the Saxon buries all discords between them.’
‘What want they more than this, then, to achieve independence? Surely no army that England can spare could meet a people thus united?’
‘The struggle is far from an equal one between a regular force and a mere multitude. But let us suppose that they should conquer: who is to say to what end the success may be directed? There are fatal examples abroad. Is it to establish the infidelity of France men should thus sell their lives? Is it standing here as we do now, in the city and stronghold of the Church, that we can calmly contemplate a conflict that may end in worse than a heresy?’
‘There cannot be worse than some heresies,’ broke in the Cardinal.
‘Be it so; but here might be the cradle of many. The sympathy long entertained toward France would flood the land with all her doctrines; and this island, where the banner of faith should be unfurled, may become a fastness of the infidel.’
‘Magna est Veritas et prevalebit? exclaimed the Cardinal sententiously.
‘Anything will “prevail” if you have grape and canister to enforce it. Falsehood as well as truth only needs force to make it victorious.’
‘For a while—for a short while—holy father.’
‘What is human life but a short while? But to our theme. Are we to aid these men or not? It is for our flag they are fighting now. Shall we suffer them to transfer their allegiance?’
‘The storm is about to break, your Eminence,’ said the Cardinal’s major-domo, as he presented himself suddenly. ‘Shall I order the carriages back to the stables?’
‘No; I am ready. I shall set out at once. You shall hear from me to-morrow or next day, Massoni,’ said he, in a low whisper; ‘or, better still, if you could come out to Albano to see me.’
The Père bowed deeply without speaking.
‘These are not matters to be disposed of in a day or an hour; we must have time.’
The Père bowed again and withdrew. As he turned his steps homeward his thoughts had but one subject. ‘What was the game his Eminence was bent on? What scheme was he then revolving in his mind?’
Once more beside the sick-bed of young Gerald, all Massoni’s fears for the future came back. What stuff was there in that poor, broken-spirited youth, whose meaningless stare now met him, of which to make the leader in a perilous enterprise? Every look, every gesture, but indicated a temperament soft, gentle, and compliant; and if by chance he uttered a stray word, it was spoken timidly and distrustfully, like one who feared to give trouble. Never did there seem a case where the material was less suited for the purpose for which it was meant; and the Père gazed down at him as he lay in deep and utter despondency. In the immense difficulty of the case all its interest reposed; and he felt what a triumph it would be could he only resuscitate that dying youth, and make him the head of a great achievement. It was a task that might try all his resources, and he resolved to attempt it.
We will not weary our reader with the uneventful story of that recovery: the progress so painfully slow that its steps were imperceptible, and the change which gradually converted the state of fatuity to one of speculation, and finally brought the youth out of sickness and suffering, and made him—weak and delicate, of course—able to feel enjoyment in life and eager for its pleasures. If Gerald could never fathom the mystery of all the care bestowed upon him, nor guess why he was thus tended and watched, as little could the Père Massoni comprehend the strange features of that intellect which each day’s experience continued to reveal to him. Through all the womanly tenderness of his character there ran a vein of romantic aspiration, undirected and unguided, it is true, but which gave promise of an ambitious spirit. That some great enterprise had been the dream of his early youth—some adventurous career—seemed a fixed notion with himself; and why, and how, and wherefore its accomplishment had been interrupted, was the difficulty that often occupied his thoughts for hours. In his vain endeavours to trace back events, snatches of his early life would rise to his memory: his sick-bed at the Tana; his wanderings in the Maremma; the simple songs of Marietta; the spirit-stirring verses of Alfieri; and through these, as dark clouds lowering over a sunny landscape, the bitter lessons of Gabriel Riquetti—his cold sarcasm and his disbelief. For all vicissitudes of the youth’s life the Père was prepared, but not for that strange discursive reading of which his memory was filled; and it was not easy to understand by what accident his mind had been stored with snatches of Jacobite songs, passages from Pascal, dreary reveries of Jean Jacques, and heroic scenes of Alfieri.
Led on to study the singular character of the youth’s mind, Massoni conceived for him at length a strong affection; but though recognising how much of good and amiable there was in his disposition, he saw, too, that the intellect had been terribly disturbed, and that the dreadful scenes he had gone through had left indelible traces upon him.
Scarcely a day passed that the Père did not change his mind about him. At one moment he would feel confident that Gerald was the very stuff they needed—bold, highhearted, and daring; at the next, he would sink in despondency over the youth’s childlike waywardness, his uncertainty, and his capriciousness. There was really no fixity of character about him; and even in his most serious moods, droll and absurd images would present themselves to his mind, and turn at once all the current of his thoughts. While weeks rolled over thus, the Père continued to assure the Cardinal that the young man was gradually gaining in health and strength, and that even his weakly, convalescent state gave evidence of traits that offered noble promise of a great future.
Knowing all the importance of the first impression the youth should make on his Eminence, the Père continued by various pretexts to defer the day of the meeting; and the Cardinal, though anxious to see Gerald, feared to precipitate matters.
Although Massoni desired greatly to inform his young guest on all the circumstances of his parentage and his supposed rights, he perceived all the importance of letting that communication come from the Cardinal Caraffa. It was not merely that the youth would himself be more impressed by the tidings, but that the Cardinal would be so much the more pledged to the cause in which he had so far interested himself.
To accomplish this project, the Jesuit had recourse to all his address, since his Eminence continued to maintain a policy of strict reserve, pledging himself to nothing, and simply saying: ‘When I have seen him, and spoken with him, it will be time enough to give an opinion as to the future.’
To this Massoni objected, by alluding to the evil effect of such want of confidence.
‘He will be a prince with royal rights and belongings one of these days; and he will not forget the cold reserve of all this policy; whereas, on the other hand, he would never cease to remember with gratitude him from whose lips he first learned his good fortune.’
He urged these and similar arguments with all his zeal, but yet unsuccessfully; and it was only at last, when he said that he would appeal to the Cardinal York, that Caraffa yielded, and agreed to concede to his wishes.
The Père had procured copies of various documents which established the marriage of Prince Charles Edward with Grace Fitzgerald of Cappa Glynn; a record of the baptism of Gerald, who was born at Marne, in Brittany; several letters in the handwriting of the Prince, acknowledging his marriage, and speaking of his child as one some day or other to enjoy a princely state; and a fragment of a letter from Grace herself, in which she speaks of the cruelty of asking her to surrender the proofs of her marriage, and pleads in the name of her boy for its recognition. Another letter from her, evidently in answer to one from the Cardinal York, whose intercession she had entreated, gave some most touching details of her life of poverty and privation, and the straits by which she avoided the discovery of a secret which to herself would have been the source of greatness and high station. Numerous letters in the handwriting of the Cardinal Gualterio also showed the unavailing efforts made by the Prince’s family to induce her to give a formal denial to the reputed marriage: in these, frequent mention was made of the splendid compensation that would be made to Grace Fitzgerald if she relinquished her claim, and the total inutility of persisting to sustain it.
All these documents had been obtained by Carrol, either original or copied, from the Fitzgeralds of Cappa Glynn. Most of these had been in Grace’s own possession, and some had been brought from Rome by Fra Luke, when he left that city for Ireland. A list of these papers, with their contents, had been furnished to the Cardinal Caraffa, accompanied by a short paper drawn up by Massoni himself. In this ‘memoir,’ the Père had distinctly shown that the question of the youth’s legitimacy was indisputable, and that even if his Eminence demurred to the project of making him the head of a great political movement, his right as heir to the Prince could not be invalidated.
The Cardinal bestowed fully three weeks over these records before he gave any reply to Massoni, and then he answered in a tone of half-careless and discouraging meaning, ‘that the papers were curious—interesting too—from the high station of many of the writers, but evidently deficient as proofs of a matter so pregnant with great results.’ He hinted also, that from the wayward, adventurous kind of life Charles Edward led, a charge of this nature would not be difficult to make, and even support by every plausible evidence of its truth; and lastly, he assured the Père that the will of his Royal Highness contained no allusion to such an heir, nor any provision for him.
‘You seem to make a point of my seeing the youth, to which I do not perceive there is any objection, but that you couple it with the condition of my making him the momentous communication of his birth and rank. Surely, you cannot mean that on the vague evidence now before me, I am to pledge myself to these facts, and indorse documents so unsubstantiated as these are? As to your opening any communication with the Cardinal York, I cannot listen to it. His Eminence is in the most precarious state of health, and his nervous irritability so intense, that any such step on your part would be highly indiscreet. If, therefore, it be your determination to take this course, mine is as firmly adopted, to withdraw altogether from any interest in the affair. The earlier I learn from you which line you intend to pursue, the more agreeable it will be to—Your very true friend,
Caraffa, Cardinal.’
Massoni returned no reply to this letter. The crafty father saw that the threat of addressing the Cardinal York had so far affrighted Caraffa, that he was sure to come to any terms that might avoid this contingency. To leave this menace to work slowly, gradually, and powerfully into his mind, Massoni at once decided.
When, therefore, after a week’s silence, the Cardinal sent him a few lines to intimate that his former letter remained unanswered, the Père simply said, that his Eminence’s letter was one which, in his humility, he could only reflect over, and not answer.
The day after he had despatched this, a plain carriage, without arms, and the servants in dark grey liveries, drove into the college, and the Cardinal Caraflfa got out of it, and asked to see the Elector.
With a cheek slightly flushed, and a haughty step, Caraflfa entered the little library, where the Père was seated at study, and though Massoni’s reception was marked by every observance of respectful humility, his Eminence sharply said—
‘You carry your head high, Père Massoni. You have a haughty spirit. Is it that your familiarity with Royalty has taught you to treat Cardinals thus cavalierly?’
‘I am the humblest slave and servant of your Eminence,’ was the submissive answer, as with arms crossed upon his breast and head bent forward, Massoni stood before him.
‘I should be sorry to have a whole household of such material,’ said the Cardinal with a supercilious smile; then, after a moment, and in an easier, lighter tone of banter he said: ‘And his Royal Highness, Père, how is he?’
‘The Prince is better, your Eminence: he is able to walk about the garden, where he is at this moment.’
‘The cares of his estate have not, I trust, interfered with his recovery,’ said Caraflfa in the same accent of mockery.
‘If he does not yet know them,’ said Massoni gravely, ‘it is because in my deference to your Eminence I have waited for yourself to make the communication.’
‘Are you still decided, then, that he must be of royal race?’
‘I see no reason why he should be robbed of his birthright.’
‘Would you make him the heir of Charles Edward?’
‘He is so.’
‘King of England, too?’
‘If legitimacy mean anything, he is that also.’
‘Arnulph tells us, that when a delusion gets hold of a strong intellect, it grows there like an oak that has its roots in a rock: its progress slow, its development difficult, but its tenacity ineradicable.’
‘Your Eminence’s logic would be excellent in its application, but that you have assumed the whole question at issue! Are you so perfectly sure that this is a delusion?’
‘Let us talk like men of the world, Père Massoni,’ said Carafla bluntly. ‘If this tale be all true, what interest has it for you or me?’
‘Its truth, your Eminence,’ said the Père, with a gesture of deep humility, as though by a show of respect to cover the bold rebuke of his words.
‘So far, of course, it claims our sympathy and our support,’ said Carafla, reddening; ‘but my question was addressed rather to what would carry a more worldly signification. I meant, in short, to what object could it contribute for which we are interested?’
‘I have already, and at great length, explained to your Eminence, the importance of connecting the great convulsion of the day, with a movement in favour of monarchy and the Church. When men wandered from the one, they deserted the other. Let us see if the beacon that lights to the throne should not show the path to the shrine also.’
‘You would assuredly accept a very humble instrument to begin your work with.’
‘A fisherman and a tent-maker sustained a grander cause against a whole world!’
The Cardinal started. He was not, for a second or two, quite satisfied that the reply was devoid of profanity. The calm seriousness of Massoni’s face, however, showed that the speech was not uttered in a spirit of levity.
‘Père Massoni,’ said the Cardinal seriously, ‘let us bethink ourselves well ere we are committed to the cause of this youth. Are we so sure that it is a charge will repay us?’
‘I have given the matter the best and maturest reflection,’ said the Père; ‘I have tested it in all ways as a question of right, of justice, and of expediency; I have weighed its influence on the present, and its consequences on the future; and I see no obstacles or difficulties, save such as present themselves where a great work is to be achieved.’
‘Had you lived in as close intimacy with the followers of the Stuarts as I have, Massoni, you would pause ere you linked the fortunes of an enterprise with a family so unlucky. Do you know,’ added he earnestly, ‘there was scarcely a mishap of the last expedition not directly traceable to the Prince.’
The Père shook his head in dissent.
‘You have not then heard, as I have, of his rashness, his levity, his fickleness, and worse than all these, his obstinacy.’
‘There is not one of these qualities without another name,’ said the Père, with a sad smile; ‘and they would read as truthfully if called bravery, high-heartedness, versatility, and resolution; but were it all as your Eminence says, it matters not. Here is an enterprise totally different. The cause of the Stuarts appealed to the chivalry of a people, and what a mere fragment of a nation accepts or recognises such a sympathy! The cause of the Church will appeal to all that calls itself Catholic. The great element of failure in the Jacobite cause was that it never was a religious struggle: it was the assertion of legitimacy, the rights of a dynasty; and the question of the Faith was only an incident of the conflict. Here,’ he added proudly, ‘it will be otherwise, and the greatest banner in the fight will be inscribed with a cross!’
‘Prince Charles Edward failed, with all the aid of France to back him; and how is his son—if he be his son—to succeed, who has no ally, no wealth, and no prestige?’
‘And do you not know that it was France and French treachery that wrecked the cause of the Stuarts? Did not the Cardinal Gualterio detect the secret correspondence between the Tuileries and St. James’s? Is it not on record that the expedition was delayed three days in sailing, to give time to transmit intelligence to the English government?’
‘These are idle stories, Massoni; Gualterio only dreamed them.’
‘Mayhap it was also a dream that the Prince was ordered to quit Paris in twenty-four hours, and the soil of France within a week, at the express demand of England?’
‘What you now speak of was a later policy, ignoble and mean, I admit.’
‘But why waste time on the past? Has your Eminence read the memoir I sent you?’
‘I have.’
‘Have you well and duly weighed the importance attached to the different character of the present scheme from all that has preceded it, and how much that character is likely to derive support from the peculiarity of the Irish temperament?’
‘Yes. It is a people eminently religious: steadfast in the faith.’
‘Have you well considered that if this cause be not made our own it will be turned against us; that the agents of Irish independence—Tone, Teeling, Jackson, and other—are in close communication with the French government, and earnestly entreating them to despatch an expedition to Ireland?’
‘This would be indeed fatal to us,’ said Caraflfa despondingly.
‘And yet it is what will assuredly happen if we do not intervene.’
‘But can we prevent it?’
‘I believe we can. I believe there is even yet time to make the struggle our own. But if there is not—if it be too late—we shall have a great game to play. A Protestant rising must never have our support! Better far for us to turn to the government and by this ostentatious show of our allegiance, lay foundation for future demands and concessions.’
The Cardinal bent his head twice in approval.
‘All these things, however, combine to show that we must be up and stirring. Many who would be with us, if they were sure of our going forward, will take service with Tone and his party, if we delay. Carrol himself was pledged to report in person to the secret committee at Waterford by the eighth of the month, and we are now at the seventeenth. These delays are serious! This letter from Hussey, which only reached me last night, will show your Eminence how eagerly our answer is awaited.’
The Cardinal made a gesture of impatience, as he declined the proffered letter.
‘It is not,’ said he, ‘by such considerations we are to be swayed, Massoni.’
‘Hussey insists on knowing whether or not your Eminence is with them,’ said the Père boldly, ‘and if you have recognised the young Prince.’
‘So, then, he knows of your secret,’ said the Cardinal with a sly malice.
‘He knew of this youth’s birth and station ere I did myself: he was the confessor of the Fitzgerald family, and attended Grace on her deathbed.’
‘Hussey, then, believes this story?’
‘He would swear to its truth, your Eminence.’
‘He is a crafty fellow, and one not easily to be deceived,’ said Caraffa, musing. ‘Let me see his letter.’
He took the letter from the Père, and perused it carefully.
‘I see little in this,’ said he, handing it back, ‘that you have not already told me.’
‘I have endeavoured to make your Eminence acquainted with everything that occurred,’ said Massoni with downcast eyes, but yet contriving to watch the countenance of the other attentively.
‘Monsignor Hussey, then, recommends in case of any backwardness—such is his phrase—that you yourself should reveal to this youth the story of his descent. Have you thought over this counsel?’
‘I have, your Eminence.’
‘Well, and to what conclusion has it led you?’
‘That there was no other course open to me,’ said Massoni firmly.
The Cardinal’s brow darkened, and he turned upon the Père a look of insolent defiance.
‘So, then, Père Massoni, this is to be a trial of skill between us; but I will not accept the challenge, sir. It is without shame that I confess myself unequal to a Jesuit in craftiness.’
The Père never spoke, but stood with arms crossed and bent-down head as if in thought.
‘It must be owned, sir,’ continued Caraffa scoffingly, ‘that you have no craven spirit. Most men, situated as you are, would have hesitated ere they selected for their adversary a Prince of the Church.’
Still was Massoni silent.
‘While, as to your protégé, with one word of mine to the Minister of Police, he would be driven out of Rome—out of the States of the Church—as a vagabond.’
The word had scarcely been uttered, when the door opened, and Gerald stood before them. For an instant he hesitated, abashed at his intrusion; but Massoni stepped hastily forward, and taking his hand, said—
‘Your Eminence, this is the Chevalier!’
Caraffa, who had known Charles Edward in his early life, stood actually like one thunderstruck before the youth, so exactly was he his counterpart. His full and soft blue eyes, the long silky hair of a rich brown colour, falling heavily on his neck, the mouth, half pouting and half proud, and the full chin, roundly moulded as a woman’s, were all there; while in his air and mien a resemblance no less striking was apparent. By artful thoughtfulness of the Jesuit father, the youth’s dress was made to assist the schemes, for it was a suit of black velvet, such as Charles Edward used to wear when a young man; a blue silk under-vest, barely appearing, gave the impression that it was the ribbon of the garter, which the young Prince rarely laid aside.
Not all the eloquence and all the subtlety of Massoni could have accomplished the result which was in a moment effected by that apparition; and as Gerald stood half timidly, half haughtily there, Caraffa bowed low, and with all the deference he would have accorded to superior rank. For a second the dark eyes of the Jesuit flashed a gleam of triumph, but the next moment his look was calm and composed. The crafty Père saw that the battle was won if the struggle could be but concluded at once, and so, addressing Gerald in a tone of marked deference, he said—
‘I have long wished for the day when I should see this meeting; that its confidence may be unbroken and undisturbed, I will withdraw,’ and with a separate reverence to each, the Père backed to the door and retired.
Whatever suspicions might have occurred to the Cardinal’s mind had he but time for reflection, there was now no opportunity to indulge. All had happened so rapidly, and above all there was still the spell over him of that resemblance, which seemed every moment to increase; such indeed was its influence, that it at once routed all the considerations of his prudent reserve, and made him forget everything save that he stood in the presence of a Stuart.
‘If I am confused, sir, and agitated,’ began he, ‘at this our first meeting, lay it to the account of the marvellous resemblance by which you recall my recollection of the Prince, your father. I knew him when he was about your own age, and when he graciously distinguished me by many marks of his favour.’
‘My father!’ said Gerald, over whose face a deep crimson blush first spread, and then a pallor equally great succeeded—‘did you say my father?’
‘Yes, sir. It was my fortune to be associated closely with his Royal Highness at St. Germains and afterward in Auvergne.’
Overcome by his feeling of amazement at what he heard, and yet unable to summon calmness to inquire further, Gerald sank into a chair, vainly trying to collect his faculties. Meanwhile Caraffa continued—
‘As an old man and a priest I may be forgiven for yielding slowly to convictions, and for what almost would seem a reluctance to accept as fact the evidence of your birth and station; but your presence, sir—your features as you sit there, the image of your father—appeal to something more subtle than my reason, and I feel that I am in the presence of a Stuart. Let me, then, be the first to offer the homage that is, or at least one day will be, your right’; and so saying, the Cardinal took Gerald’s hand and pressed it to his lips.
‘Is this a dream?’ muttered Gerald, half aloud—‘is my brain wandering?’
‘No, sir, you are awake; the past has been the dream—the long years of sorrow and poverty—the trials and perils of your life of accident and adventure—this has been the dream; but you are now awake to learn that you are the true-born descendant of a Royal House—a Prince of the Stuarts—the legitimate heir to a great throne!’
‘I beseech you, sir,’ cried Gerald, in a voice broken by emotion, while the tears filled his eyes, ‘I beseech you, sir, not to trifle with the feelings of one whose heart has been so long the sport of fortune, that any, even the slightest shock, may prove too powerful for his strength.’
‘You are, sir, all that I have said. My age and the dress I wear may be my guarantees that I do not speak idly nor rashly.’
A long-drawn sigh burst from the youth, and with it he fainted.