Harcourt passed the morning of the following day in watching the street for Scaresby's arrival. Glencore's impatience had grown into absolute fever to obtain the missing letter, and he kept asking every moment at what hour he had promised to be there, and wondering at his delay.
Noon passed over,—one o'clock; it was now nearly half-past, as a carriage drove hastily to the door.
“At last,” cried Glencore, with a deep sigh.
“Sir Gilbert Bruce, sir, requests to know if you can receive him,” said the servant to Harcourt.
“Another disappointment!” muttered Glencore, as he left the room, when Harcourt motioned to the servant to introduce the visitor.
“My dear Colonel Harcourt,” cried the other, entering, “excuse a very abrupt call; but I have a most pressing need of your assistance. I hear you can inform me of Lord Glencore's address.”
“He is residing in North Wales at present. I can give you his post town.”
“Yes, but can I be certain that he will admit me if I should go down there? He is living, I hear, in strict retirement, and I am anxious for a personal interview.”
“I cannot insure you that,” said Harcourt. “He does live, as you have heard, entirely estranged from all society. But if you write to him—”
“Ah! there's the difficulty. A letter and its reply takes some days.”
“And is the matter, then, so very imminent?”
“It is so; at least it is thought to be so by an authority that neither you nor I will be likely to dispute. You know his Lordship intimately, I fancy?”
“Perhaps. I may call myself as much his friend as any man living.”
“Well, then, I may confide to you my business with him. It happened that, a few days back, Lord Adderley was on a visit with the King at Brighton, when a foreign messenger arrived with despatches. They were, of course, forwarded to him there; and as the King has a passion for that species of literature, he opened them all himself. Now, I suspect that his Majesty cares more for the amusing incidents which occasionally diversify the life of foreign courts than for the great events of politics. At all events, he devours them with avidity, and seems conversant with the characters and private affairs of some hundreds of people he has never seen, nor in all likelihood will ever see! In turning over the loose pages of one of the despatches from Naples, I think, he came upon what appeared to be a fragment of a letter. Of what it was, or what it contained, I have not the slightest knowledge. Adderley himself has not seen it, nor any one but the King. All I know is that it concerns in some way Lord Glencore; for immediately on reading it he gave me instructions to find him out, and send him down to Brighton.”
“I am afraid, were you to see Glencore, your mission would prove a failure. He has given up the world altogether, and even a royal command would scarcely withdraw him from his retirement.”
“At all events, I must make the trial. You can let me have his address, and perhaps you would do more, and give me some sort of introduction to him,—something that might smooth down the difficulty of a first visit.”
Harcourt was silent, and stood for some seconds in deep thought; which the other, mistaking for a sign of unwillingness to comply with his request, quickly added, “If my demand occasion you any inconvenience, or if there be the slightest difficulty—”
“Nay, nay, I was not thinking of that,” said Harcourt. “Pray excuse me for a moment. I will fetch you the address you spoke of;” and without waiting for more, he left the room. The next minute he was in Glencore's room, hurriedly narrating to him all that had passed, and asking him what course he should pursue. Glencore heard the story with a greater calm than Harcourt dared to hope for; and seemed pleased at the reiterated assurance that the King alone had seen the letter referred to; and when Harcourt abruptly asked what was to be done, he slowly replied, “I must obey his Majesty's commands. I must go to Brighton.”
“But are you equal to all this? Have you strength for it?”
“I think so; at all events, I am determined to make the effort. I was a favorite with his Majesty long ago. He will say nothing to hurt me needlessly; nor is it in his nature to do so. Tell Bruce that you will arrange everything, and that I shall present myself to-morrow at the palace.”
“Remember, Glencore, that if you say so—”
“I must be sure and keep my word. Well, so I mean, George. I was a courtier once upon a time, and have not outlived my deference to a sovereign. I 'll be there; you may answer for me.”
From the moment that Glencore had come to this resolve, a complete change seemed to pass over the nature of the man. It was as though a new spring had been given to his existence. The reformation that all the blandishments of friendship, all the soft influences of kindness, could never accomplish, was more than half effected by the mere thought of an interview with a king, and the possible chance of a little royal sympathy!
If Harcourt was astonished, he was not the less pleased at all this. He encouraged Glencore's sense of gratification by every means in his power, and gladly lent himself to all the petty anxieties about dress and appearance in which he seemed now immersed. Nothing could exceed, indeed, the care he bestowed on these small details; ever insisting as he did that, his Majesty being the best-dressed gentleman in Europe, these matters assumed a greater importance in his eyes.
“I must try to recover somewhat of my former self,” said he. “There was a time when I came and went freely to Carlton House, when I was somewhat more than a mere frequenter of the Prince's society. They tell me that of late he is glad to see any of those who partook of his intimacy of those times; who can remember the genial spirits who made his table the most brilliant circle of the world; who can talk to him of Hanger, and Kelly, and Sheridan, and the rest of them. I spent my days and nights with them.”
Warming with the recollection of a period which, dissolute and dissipated as it was, yet redeemed by its brilliancy many of its least valuable features, Glencore poured forth story after story of a time when statesmen had the sportive-ness of schoolboys, and the greatest intellects loved to indulge in the wildest excesses of folly. A good jest upon Eldon, a smart epigram on Sidmouth, a quiz against Vansittart, was a fortune at Court; and there grew up thus around the Prince a class who cultivated ridicule so assiduously that nothing was too high or too venerable to escape their sarcasms.
Though Glencore was only emerging out of boyhood,—a young subaltern in the Prince's own regiment,—when he first entered this society, the impression it had made upon his mind was not the less permanent. Independently of the charm of being thus admitted to the most choice circle of the land, there was the fascination of intimacy with names that even amongst contemporaries were illustrious.
“I feel in such spirits to-day, George,” cried Glencore at length, “that I vote we go and pass the day at Richmond. We shall escape the possibility of being bored by your acquaintance. We shall have a glorious stroll through the fields, and a pleasant dinner afterwards at the Star and Garter.”
Only too well pleased at this sudden change in his friend's humor, Harcourt assented.
The day was a bright and clear one, with a sharp, frosty air and that elasticity of atmosphere that invigorates and stimulates. They both soon felt its influence, and as the hours wore on, pleasant memories of the past were related, and old friends remembered and talked over in a spirit that brought back to each much of the youthful sentiments they recorded.
“If one could only go over it all again, George,” said Glencore, as they sat after dinner, “up to three-and-twenty, or even a year or two later, I 'd not ask to change a day,—scarcely an hour. Whatever was deficient in fact, was supplied by hope. It was a joyous, brilliant time, when we all made partnership of our good spirits, and traded freely on the capital. Even Upton was frank and free-hearted then. There were some six or eight of us, with just fortune enough never to care about money, and none of us so rich as to be immersed in dreams of gold, as ever happens with your millionnaire. Why could we not have continued so to the end?”
Harcourt adroitly turned him from the theme which he saw impending,—his departure for the Continent, his residence there, and his marriage,—and once more occupied him in stories of his youthful life in London, when Glencore suddenly came to a stop, and said, “I might have married the greatest beauty of the time,—of a family, too, second to none in all England. You know to whom I allude. Well, she would have accepted me; her father was not averse to the match; a stupid altercation with her brother, Lord Hervey, at Brookes's one night—an absurd dispute about some etiquette of the play-table—estranged me from their house. I was offended at what I deemed their want of courtesy in not seeking me,—for I was in the right; every one said so. I determined not to call first. They gave a great entertainment, and omitted me; and rather than stay in town to publish this affront, I started for the Continent; and out of that petty incident, a discussion of the veriest trifle imaginable, there came the whole course of my destiny.”
“To be sure,” said Harcourt, with assumed calm, “every man's fortune in life is at the sport of some petty incident or other, which at the time he undervalues.”
“And then we scoff at those men who scrutinize each move, and hesitate over every step in life, as triflers and little-minded; while, if your remark be just, it is exactly they who are the wise and prudent,” cried Glencore, with warmth. “Had I, for instance, seen this occurrence, trivial as it was, in its true light, what and where might I not have been to-day?”
“My dear Glencore, the luckiest fellow that ever lived, were he only to cast a look back on opportunities neglected, and conjunctures unprofited by, would be sure to be miserable. I am far from saying that some have not more than their share of the world's sorrows; but, take my word for it, every one has his load, be it greater or less; and, what is worse, we all of us carry our burdens with as much inconvenience to ourselves as we can.”
“I know what you would say, Harcourt. It is the old story about giving way to passion, and suffering temper to get the better of one; but let me tell you that there are trials where passion is an instinct, and reason works too slowly. I have experienced such as this.”
“Give yourself but fair play, Glencore, and you will surmount all your troubles. Come back into the world again,—I don't mean this world of balls and dinner-parties, of morning calls and afternoons in the Park; but a really active, stirring life. Come with me to India, and let us have a raid amongst the jaguars; mix with the pleasant, light-hearted fellows you 'll meet at every mess, who ask for nothing better than their own good spirits and good health, to content them with the world; just look out upon life, and see what numbers are struggling and swimming for existence, while you, at least, have competence and wealth for all you wish; and bear in mind that round the table where wit is flashing and the merriest laughter rings, there is not a man—no, not one—who hasn't a something heavy in his heart, but yet who'd feel himself a coward if his face confessed it.”
“And why am I to put this mask upon me? For what and for whom have I to wear this disguise?” cried Glencore, angrily.
“For yourself! It is in bearing up manfully before the world you'll gain the courage to sustain your own heart. Ay, Glencore, you 'll do it to-morrow. In the presence of royalty you 'll comport yourself with dignity and reserve, and you 'll come out from the interview higher and stronger in self-esteem.”
“You talk as if I were some country squire who would stand abashed and awe-struck before his King; but remember, my worthy Colonel, I have lived a good deal inside the tabernacle, and its mysteries are no secrets to me.
“Reason the more for what I say!” broke in Harcourt; “your deference will not obliterate your judgment; your just respect will not alloy your reason.”
“I'll talk to the King, sir, as I talk to you,” said Glencore, passionately; “nor is the visit of my seeking. I have long since done with courts and those who frequent them. What can royalty do for me? Upton and yourself may play the courtier, and fawn at levées; you have your petitions to present, your favors to beg for; you want to get this, or be excused from that: but I am no supplicant; I ask for no place, no ribbon. If the King speak to me about my private affairs, he shall be answered as I would answer any one who obtrudes his rank into the place that should only be occupied by friendship.”
“It may be that he has some good counsel to offer.”
“Counsel to offer me!” burst in Glencore, with increased warmth. “I would no more permit any man to give me advice unasked than I would suffer him to go to my tradespeople and pay my debts for me. A man's private sorrows are his debts,—obligations between himself and his own heart. Don't tell me, sir, that even a king's prerogative absolves him from the duties of a gentleman.”
While he uttered these words, he continued to fill and empty his wine-glass several times, as if passion had stimulated his thirst; and now his flashing eyes and his heightened color betrayed the effect of wine.
“Let us stroll out into the cool air,” said Harcourt. “See what a gorgeous night of stars it is!”
“That you may resume your discourse on patience and resignation!” said Glencore, scoffingly. “No, sir. If I must listen to you, let me have at least the aid of the decanter. Your bitter maxims are a bad substitute for olives, but I must have wine to swallow them.”
“I never meant them to be so distasteful to you,” said Harcourt, good-humoredly.
“Say, rather, you troubled your head little whether they were or not,” replied Glencore, whose voice was now thick from passion and drink together. “You and Upton, and two or three others, presume to lecture me—who, because gifted, if you call it gifted—I'd say cursed—ay, sir, cursed with coarser natures—temperaments where higher sentiments have no place—fellows that can make what they feel subordinate to what they want—you appreciate that, I hope—that stings you, does it? Well, sir, you'll find me as ready to act as to speak. There's not a word I utter here I mean to retract to-morrow.”
“My dear Glencore, we have both taken too much wine.”
“Speak for yourself, sir. If you desire to make the claret the excuse for your language, I can only say it's like everything else in your conduct,—always a subterfuge, always a scapegoat. Oh, George, George, I never suspected this in you;” and burying his head between his hands, he burst into tears.
He never spoke a word as Harcourt assisted him to the carriage, nor did he open his lips on the road homewards.
In one of the most sequestered nooks of Sorrento, almost escarped out of the rocky cliff, and half hid in the foliage of orange and oleander trees, stood the little villa of the Princess Sabloukoff. The blue sea washed the white marble terrace before the windows, and the arbutus, whose odor scented the drawing-room, dipped its red berries in the glassy water. The wildest and richest vegetation abounded on every side. Plants and shrubs of tropical climes mingled with the hardier races of Northern lands; and the cedar and the plantain blended their leaves with the sycamore and the ilex; while, as if to complete the admixture, birds and beasts of remote countries were gathered together; and the bustard, the ape, and the antelope mixed with the peacock, the chamois, and the golden pheasant. The whole represented one of those capricious exhibitions by which wealth so often associates itself with the beautiful, and, despite all errors in taste, succeeds in making a spot eminently lovely. So was it. There was often light where a painter would have wished shadow. There were gorgeous flowers where a poet would have desired nothing beyond the blue heather-bell. There were startling effects of view, managed where chance glimpses through the trees had been infinitely more picturesque. There was, in fact, the obtrusive sense of riches in a thousand ways and places where mere unadorned nature had been far preferable; and yet, with all these faults, sea and sky, rock and foliage, the scented air, the silence, only broken by the tuneful birds, the rich profusion of color upon a sward strewn with flowers, made of the spot a perfect paradise.
In a richly decorated room, whose three windows opened on a marble terrace, sat the Princess. It was December; but the sky was cloudless, the sea a perfect mirror, and the light air that stirred the leaves soft and balmy as the breath of May. Her dress was in keeping with the splendor around her: a rich robe of yellow silk fastened up the front with large carbuncle buttons; sleeves of deep Valenciennes lace fell far over her jewelled fingers; and a scarf of golden embroidery, negligently thrown over an arm of her chair, gave what a painter would call the warm color to a very striking picture. Farther from the window, and carefully protected from the air by a screen, sat a gentleman whose fur-lined pelisse and velvet skull-cap showed that he placed more faith in the almanac than in the atmosphere. From his cork-soled boots to his shawl muffled about the throat, all proclaimed that distrust of the weather that characterizes the invalid. No treachery of a hot sun, no seductions of that inveterate cheat, a fine day in winter, could inveigle Sir Horace Upton into any forgetfulness of his precautions. He would have regarded such as a palpable weakness on his part,—a piece of folly perfectly unbecoming in a man of his diplomatic standing and ability.
He was writing, and smoking, and talking by turns, the table before him being littered with papers, and even the carpet at his feet strewn with the loose sheets of his composition. There was not in his air any of the concentration, or even seriousness, of a man engaged in an important labor; and yet the work before him employed all his faculties, and he gave to it the deepest attention of abilities of which very few possessed the equal. To great powers of reasoning and a very strong judgment he united a most acute knowledge of men; not exactly of mankind in the mass, but of that especial order with whom he had habitually to deal. Stolid, commonplace stupidity might puzzle or embarrass him; while for any amount of craft, for any degree of subtlety, he was an over-match. The plain matter-of-fact intelligence occasionally gained a slight advantage over him at first; the trained and polished mind of the most astute negotiator was a book he could read at sight. It was his especial tact to catch up all this knowledge at once,—very often in a first interview,—and thus, while others were interchanging the customary platitudes of every-day courtesy, he was gleaning and recording within himself the traits and characteristics of all around him.
“A clever fellow, very clever fellow, Cineselli,” said he, as he continued to write. “His proposition is—certain commercial advantages, and that we, on our side, leave him alone to deal his own way with his own rabble. I see nothing against it, so long as they continue to be rabble; but grubs grow into butterflies, and very vulgar populace have now and then emerged into what are called liberal politicians.”
“Only where you have the blessing of a free press,” said the Princess, in a tone of insolent mockery.
“Quite true, Princess; a free press is a tonic that with an increased dose becomes a stimulant, and occasionally over-excites.”
“It makes your people drunk now and then!” said she, angrily.
“They always sleep it off over-night,” said he, softly. “They very rarely pay even the penalty of the morning headache for the excess, which is exactly why it will not answer in warmer latitudes.”
“Ours is a cold one, and I 'm sure it would not suit us.”
“I'm not so certain of that,” said he, languidly. “I think it is eminently calculated for a people who don't know how to read.”
She would have smiled at the remark, if the sarcasm had not offended her.
“Your Lordship will therefore see,” muttered he, reading to himself as he wrote, “that in yielding this point we are, while apparently making a concession, in reality obtaining a very considerable advantage—”
“Rather an English habit, I suspect,” said she, smiling.
“Picked up in the course of our Baltic trade, Princess. In sending us your skins, you smuggled in some of your sentiments; and Russian tallow has enlightened the nation in more ways than one!”
“You need it all, my dear chevalier,” said she, with a saucy smile. “Harzewitch told me that your diplomatic people were inferior to those of the third-rate German States; that, in fact, they never had any 'information.'”
“I know what he calls 'information,' Princess; and his remark is just. Our Government is shockingly mean, and never would keep up a good system of spies.”
“Spies! If you mean by an odious word to inculpate the honor of a high calling—”
“Pray forgive my interruption, but I am speaking in all good faith. When I said 'spy,' it was in the bankrupt misery of a man who had nothing else to offer. I wanted to imply that pure but small stream which conveys intelligence from a fountain to a river it was not meant to feed. Was n't that a carriage I heard in the 'cour'? Oh, pray don't open the window; there's an odious libeccio blowing to-day, and there's nothing so injurious to the nervous system.”
“A cabinet messenger, your Excellency,” said a servant, entering.
“What a bore! I hoped I was safe from a despatch for at least a month to come. I really believe they have no veneration for old institutions in England. They don't even celebrate Christmas!”
“I'm charmed at the prospect of a bag,” cried the Princess.
“May I have the messenger shown in here, Princess?”
“Certainly; by all means.”
“Happy to see your Excellency; hope your Ladyship is in good health,” said a smart-looking young fellow, who wore a much-frogged pelisse, and sported a very well-trimmed moustache.
“Ah, Stevins, how d'ye do?” said Upton. “You've had a cold journey over the Cenis.”
“Came by the Splugen, your Excellency. I went round by Vienna, and Maurice Esterhazy took me as far as Milan.”
The Princess stared with some astonishment. That the messenger should thus familiarly style one of that great family was indeed matter of wonderment to her; nor was it lessened as Upton whispered her, “Ask him to dine.”
“And London, how is it? Very empty, Stevins?” continued he.
“A desert,” was the answer.
“Where's Lord Adderley?”
“At Brighton. The King can't do without him,—greatly to Adderley's disgust; for he is dying to have a week's shooting in the Highlands.”
“And Cantworth, where is he?”
“He's off for Vienna, and a short trip to Hungary. I met him at dinner at the mess while waiting for the Dover packet. By the way, I saw a friend of your Excellency's,—Harcourt.”
“Not gone to India?”
“No. They've made him a governor or commander-in-chief of something in the Mediterranean; I forget exactly where or what.”
“You have brought me a mighty bag, Stevins,” said Upton, sighing. “I had hoped for a little ease and rest now that the House is up.”
“They are all blue-books, I believe,” replied Stevins. “There's that blacking your Excellency wrote about, and the cricket-bats; the lathe must come out by the frigate, and the down mattress at the same time.”
“Just do me the favor to open the bag, my dear Stevins. I am utterly without aid here,” said Upton, sighing drearily; and the other proceeded to litter the table and the floor with a variety of strange and incongruous parcels.
“Report of factory commissioners,” cried he, throwing down a weighty quarto. “Yarmouth bloaters; Atkinson's cerulean paste for the eyebrows; Worcester sauce; trade returns for Tahiti; a set of shoemaking tools; eight bottles of Darby's pyloric corrector; buffalo flesh-brushes,—devilish hard they seem; Hume's speech on the reduction of foreign legations; novels from Bull's; top-boots for a tiger; and a mass of letters,” said Stevins, throwing them broadcast over the sofa.
“No despatches?” cried Upton, eagerly.
“Not one, by Jove!” said Stevins.
“Open one of those Darby's. I 'll take a teaspoonful at once. Will you try it, Stevins?”
“Thanks, your Excellency, I never take physic.”
“Well, you dine here, then,” said he, with a sly look at the Princess.
“Not to-day, your Excellency. I dine with Grammont at eight.”
“Then I'll not detain you. Come back here to-morrow about eleven or a little later. Come to breakfast if you like.”
“At what hour?”
“I don't know,—at any hour,” sighed Upton, as he opened one of his letters and began to read; and Stevins bowed and withdrew, totally unnoticed and unrecognized as he slipped from the room.
One after another Upton threw down, after reading half a dozen lines, muttering some indistinct syllables over the dreary stupidity of letter-writers in general. Occasionally he came upon some pressing appeal for money,—some urgent request for even a small remittance by the next post; and these he only smiled at, while he refolded them with a studious care and neatness. “Why will you not help me with this chaos, dear Princess?” said he, at last.
“I am only waiting to be asked,” said she; “but I feared that there might be secrets—”
“From you?” said he, with a voice of deep tenderness, while his eyes sparkled with an expression far more like raillery than affection. The Princess, however, had either not seen or not heeded it, for she was already deep in the correspondence.
“This is strictly private. Am I to read it?” said she.
“Of course,” said he, bowing courteously. And she read:—
“Dear Upton,—Let us have a respite from tariffs and trade-talk for a month or two, and tell me rather what the world is doing around you. We have never got the right end of that story about the Princess Celestine as yet. Who was he? Not Labinsky, I'll be sworn. The K—— insists it was Roseville, and I hope you may be able to assure me that he is mistaken. He is worse tempered than ever. That Glencore business has exasperated him greatly. Could n't your Princess,—the world calls her yours [“How good of the world, and how delicate of your friend!” said she, smiling superciliously. “Let us see who the writer is. Oh! a great man,—the Lord Adderley,” and went on with her reading:] couldn't your Princess find out something of real consequence to us about the Q——”
“What queen does he mean?” cried she, stopping.
“The Queen of Sheba, perhaps,” said Upton, biting his lips with anger, while he made an attempt to take the letter from her.
“Pardon! this is interesting,” said she, and went on:
“We shall want it soon; that is, if the manufacturing districts will not kindly afford us a diversion by some open-air demonstrations and a collision with the troops. We have offered them a most taking bait, by announcing wrongfully the departure of six regiments for India; thus leaving the large towns in the North apparently ungarrisoned. They are such poltroons that the chances are they 'll not bite! You were right about Emerson. We have made his brother a Bishop, and he voted with us on the Arms Bill. Cole is a sterling patriot and an old Whig. He says nothing shall seduce him from his party, save a Lordship of the Admiralty. Corruption everywhere, my dear Upton, except on the Treasury benches!
“Holecroft insists on being sent to Petersburg; and having ascertained that the Emperor will not accept him, I have induced the K——to nominate him to the post. 'Non culpa nostra,' etc. He can scarcely vote against us after such an evidence of our good-will. Find out what will give most umbrage to your Court, and I will tell you why in my next.
“Don't bother yourself about the Greeks. The time is not come yet, nor will it till it suit our policy to loosen the ties with Russia. As to France, there is not, nor will there be, in our time at least, any Government there. We must deal with them as with a public meeting, which may reverse to-morrow the resolutions they have adopted to-day. The French will never be formidable till they are unanimous. They 'll never be unanimous till we declare war with them! Remember, I don't want anything serious with Cineselli. Irritate and worry as much as you can. Send even for a ship or two from Malta; but go no farther. I want this for our radicals at home. Our own friends are in the secret. Write me a short despatch about our good relations with the Two Sicilies; and send me some news in a private letter. Let me have some ortolans in the bag, and believe me yours,
“Adderley.”
“There,” said she, turning over a number of letters with a mere glance at their contents, “these are all trash,—shooting and fox-hunting news, which one reads in the newspapers better, or at least more briefly, narrated, with all that death and marriage intelligence which you English are so fond of parading before the world. But what is this literary gem here? Where did the paper come from? And that wonderful seal, and still more wonderful address?—'To his Worshipful Excellency the Truly Worthy and Right Honorable Sir Horace Upton, Plenipotentiary, Negotiator, and Extraordinary Diplomatist, living at Naples.'”
“What can it mean?” said he, languidly.
“You shall hear,” said she, breaking the massive seal of green wax, which, to the size of a crown piece, ornamented one side of the epistle. “It is dated Schwats, Tyrol, and begins: 'Venerated and Reverend Excellency, when these unsymmetrically-designed, and not more ingeniously-conceived syllables—' Let us see his name,” said she, stop-ping suddenly, and turning to the last page, read, “'W. T., vulgo, Billy Traynor,—a name cognate to your Worshipful Eminence in times past.'”
“To be sure, I remember him perfectly,—a strange creature that came out here with that boy you heard me speak of. Pray read on.”
“I stopped at 'syllables.' Yes—when these curiously-conceived syllables, then, come under the visionary apertures of your acute understanding, they will disclose to your much-reflecting and nice-discriminating mind as cruel and murderous a deed as ever a miscreant imagination suggested to a diabolically-constructed and nefariously-fashioned organization, showing that Nature in her bland adaptiveness never imposes a mistaken fruit on a genuine arborescence'—Do you understand him?” asked she.
“Partly, perhaps,” continued he. “Let us have the subject.”
“'Not to weary your exalted and never-enough-to-be-esteemed intelligence, I will proceed, without further ambiguous or circumgyratory evolutions, to the main body of my allegation. It happened in this way: Charley—your venerated worship knows who I mean—Charley, ever deep in marmorial pursuits, and far progressed in sculptorial excellence, with a genius that Phidias, if he did not envy, would esteem—'
“Really I cannot go on with these interminable parentheses,” said she; “you must decipher them yourself.” Upton took the letter, and read it, at first hastily, and then, recommencing, with more of care and attention, occasionally stopping to reflect, and consider the details. “This is likely to be a troublesome business,” said he. “This boy has got himself into a serious scrape. Love and a duel are bad enough; but an Austrian state-prison, and a sentence of twenty years in irons, are even worse. So far as I can make out from my not over lucid correspondent, he had conceived a violent affection for a young lady at Massa, to whose favor a young Austrian of high rank at the same time pretended.”
“Wahnsdorf, I'm certain,” broke in the Princess; “and the girl—that Mademoiselle—”
“Harley,” interposed Sir Horace.
“Just so,—Harley. Pray go on,” said she, eagerly.
“A very serious altercation and a duel were the consequences of this rivalry, and Wahnsdorf has been dangerously wounded; his life is still in peril. The Harleys have been sent out of the country, and my unlucky protégé, handed over to the Austrians, has been tried, condemned, and sentenced to twenty years in Kuffstein, a Tyrol fortress where great severity is practised,—from the neighborhood of which this letter is written, entreating my speedy interference and protection.”
“What can you do? It is not even within your jurisdiction,” said she, carelessly.
“True; nor was the capture by the Austrians within theirs, Princess. It is a case where assuredly everybody was in the wrong, and, therefore, admirably adapted for nice negotiation.”
“Who and what is the youth?”
“I have called him a protégé.”
“Has he no more tender claim to the affectionate solicitude of Sir Horace Upton?” said she, with an easy air of sarcasm.
“None, on my honor,” said he, eagerly; “none, at least, of the kind you infer. His is a very sad story, which I 'll tell you about at another time. For the present, I may say that he is English, and as such must be protected by the English authorities. The Government of Massa have clearly committed a great fault in handing him over to the Austrians. Stubber must be 'brought to book' for this in the first instance. By this we shall obtain a perfect insight into the whole affair.”
“The Imperial family will never forgive an insult offered to one of their own blood,” said the Princess, haughtily.
“We shall not ask them to forgive anything, my dear Princess. We shall only prevent their natural feelings betraying them into an act of injustice. The boy's offence, whatever it was, occurred outside the frontier, as I apprehend.”
“How delighted you English are when you can convert an individual case into an international question! You would at any moment sacrifice an ancient alliance to the trumpery claim of an aggrieved tourist,” said she, rising angrily, and swept out of the room ere Sir Horace could arise to open the door for her.
Upton walked slowly to the chimney and rang the bell. “I shall want the calèche and post-horses at eight o'clock, Antoine. Put up some things for me, and get all my furs ready.” And with this he measured forty drops from a small phial he carried in his waistcoat pocket, and sat down to pare his nails with a very diminutive penknife.
Were we writing a drama instead of a true history, we might like to linger for a few moments on the leave-taking between the Princess and Sir Horace Upton. They were indeed both consummate “artists,” and they played their parts to perfection,—not as we see high comedy performed on the stage, by those who grotesque its refinements and exaggerate its dignity; “lashing to storm” the calm and placid lake, all whose convulsive throes are many a fathom deep, and whose wildest workings never bring a ripple to the surface. No, theirs was the true version of well-bred “performance.” A little well-affected grief at separation, brief as it was meant to be; a little half-expressed surprise, on the lady's part, at the suddenness of the departure; a little, just as vaguely conveyed, complaint on the other side, over the severe requirements of duty, and a very little tenderness—for there was no one to witness it—at the thought of parting; and with a kiss upon her hand, whose respectful courtesy no knight-errant of old could have surpassed, Sir Horace backed from the “presence,” sighed, and slipped away.
Had our reader been a spectator instead of a peruser of the events we have lately detailed, he might have fancied, from certain small asperities of manner, certain quicknesses of reproof and readiness at rejoinder, that here were two people only waiting for a reasonable and decent pretext to go on their separate roads in life. Yet nothing of this kind was the case; the bond between them was not affection, it was simply convenience. Their partnership gave them a strength and a social solvency which would have been sorely damaged had either retired from “the firm;” and they knew it.
What would the Princess's dinners have been without the polished ease of him who felt himself half the host? What would all Sir Horace Upton's subtlety avail him, if it were not that he had sources of information which always laid open the game of his adversaries? Singly, each would have had a tough struggle with the world; together, they were more than a match for it.
The highest order of diplomatist, in the estimation of Upton, was the man who, at once, knew what was possible to be done. It was his own peculiar quality to possess this gift; but great as his natural acuteness was, it would not have availed him, without those secret springs of intelligence we have alluded to. There is no saying to what limit he might not have carried this faculty, had it not been that one deteriorating and detracting feature marred and disfigured the fairest form of his mind.
He could not, do all that he would, disabuse himself of a very low estimate of men and their motives. He did not slide into this philosophy, as certain indolent people do, just to save them the trouble of discriminating; he did not acquire it by the hard teachings of adversity. No; it came upon him slowly and gradually, the fruit, as he believed, of calm judgment and much reflection upon life. As little did he accept it willingly; he even labored against the conviction: but, strive as he might, there it was, and there it would remain.
His fixed impression was, that in every circumstance and event in life there was always a dessous des cartes,—a deeper game concealed beneath the surface,—and that it was a mere question of skill and address how much of this penetrated through men's actions. If this theory unravelled many a tangled web of knavery to him, it also served to embarrass and confuse him in situations where inferior minds had never recognized a difficulty! How much ingenuity did he expend to detect what had no existence! How wearily did he try for soundings where there was no bottom!
Through the means of the Princess he had learned—what some very wise heads do not yet like to acknowledge—that the feeling of the despotic governments towards England was very different from what it had been at the close of the great war with Napoleon. They had grown more dominant and exacting, just as we were becoming every hour more democratic. To maintain our old relations with them, therefore, on the old footing, would be only to involve ourselves in continual difficulty, with a certainty of final failure; and the only policy that remained was to encourage the growth of liberal opinions on the Continent, out of which new alliances might be formed, to recompense us for the loss of the old ones. There is a story told of a certain benevolent prince, whose resources were, unhappily, not commensurate with his good intentions, and whose ragged retinue wearied him with entreaties for assistance. “Be of good cheer,” said he, one day, “I have ordered a field of flax to be sown, and you shall all of you have new shirts.” Such were pretty much the position and policy of England. Out of our crop of Constitutionalism we speculated on a rich harvest, to be afterwards manufactured for our use and benefit. We leave it to deeper heads to say if the result has been all that we calculated on, and, asking pardon for such digression, we join Sir Horace once more.
When Sir Horace Upton ordered post-horses to his carriage, he no more knew where he was going, nor where he would halt, than he could have anticipated what course any conversation might take when once started. He had, to be sure, a certain ideal goal to be reached; but he was one of those men who liked to think that the casual interruptions one meets with in life are less obstruction than opportunity; so that, instead of deeming these subjects for regret or impatience, he often accepted them as indications that there was some profit to be derived from them,—a kind of fatalism more common than is generally believed. When he set out for Sorrento it was with the intention of going direct to Massa; not that this state lay within the limits his functions ascribed to him,—that being probably the very fact which imparted a zest to the journey. Any other man would have addressed himself to his colleague in Tuscany, or wherever he might be; while he, being Sir Horace Upton, took the whole business upon himself in his own way. Young Massy's case opened to his eyes a great question, viz., what was the position the Austrians assumed to take in Italy? For any care about the youth, or any sympathy with his sufferings, he distressed himself little; not that he was, in any respect, heartless or unfeeling, it was simply that greater interests were before him. Here was one of those “grand issues” that he felt worthy of his abilities,—it was a cause where he was proud to hold a brief.
Resolving all his plans of action methodically, yet rapidly; arranging every detail in his own mind, even to the use of certain expressions he was to employ,—he arrived at the palace of the Embassy, where he desired to halt to take up his letters and make a few preparations before his departure. His Maestro di Casa, Signor Franchetti, was in waiting for his arrival, and respectfully assured him “that all was in readiness, and that his Excellency would be perfectly satisfied. We had, it is true,” continued he, “a difficulty about the fish, but I sent off an express to Baia, and we have secured a sturgeon.”
“What are you raving about, caro Pipo?” said the Minister; “what is all this long story of Baia and the fish?”
“Has your Excellency forgotten that we have a grand dinner to-day, at eight o'clock; that the Prince Maximilian of Bavaria and all the foreign ambassadors are invited?”
“Is this Saturday, Pipo?” said Sir Horace, blandly.
“Yes, your Excellency.”
“Send Mr. Brockett to me,” said Sir Horace, as he slowly mounted the stairs to his own apartment.
Sir Horace was stretched on a sofa, in all the easy luxury of magnificent dressing-gown and slippers, when Mr. Brockett entered; and without any preliminary of greeting he said, with a quiet laugh, “You have let me forget all about the dinner to-day, Brockett!”
“I thought you knew it; you took great trouble about the persons to be asked, and you canvassed whether the Duc de Borodino, being only a Chargé d'Affaires—”
“There, there; don't you see the—the inappropriateness of what you are doing? Even in England a man is not asked to criminate himself. How many are coming?”
“Nineteen; the 'Nonce' is ill, and has sent an apology.”
“Then the party can be eighteen, Brockett; you must tell them that I am ill,—too ill to come to dinner. I know the Prince Max very well,—he 'll not take it badly; and as to Cineselli, we shall see what humor he is in!”
“But they 'll know that you arrived here this afternoon; they 'll naturally suppose—”
“They 'll naturally suppose—if people ever do anything so intensely stupid as naturally to suppose anything—that I am the best judge of my own health; and so, Mr. Brockett, you may as well con over the terms by which you may best acquaint the company with the reasons for my absence; and if the Prince proposes a visit to me in the evening, let him come; he 'll find me here in my own room. Would you do me the kindness to let Antinori fetch his cupping-glasses, and tell Franchetti also that I 'll take my chicken grilled, not roasted. I'll look over the treaty in the evening. One mushroom, only one, he may give me, and the Carlsbad water, at 28 degrees. I 'm very troublesome, Brockett, but I 'm sure you 'll excuse it. Thanks, thanks;” and he pressed the Secretary's hand, and gave him a smile, whose blandishment had often done good service, and would do so again!
To almost any other man in the world this interruption to his journey—this sudden tidings of a formally-arranged dinner which he could not or would not attend—would have proved a source of chagrin and dissatisfaction. Not so with Upton; he liked a “contrariety.” Whatever stirred the still waters of life, even though it should be a head-wind, was far more grateful than a calm! He laughed to himself at the various comments his company were sure to pass over his conduct; he pictured to his mind the anger of some and the astonishment of others, and revelled in the thought of the courtier-like indignation such treatment of a Royal Highness was certain to elicit.
“But who can answer for his health?” said he, with an easy laugh to himself. “Who can promise what he may be ten days hence?” The appearance of his dinner—if one may dignify by such a name the half of a chicken, flanked by a roasted apple and a biscuit—cut short his lucubrations; and Sir Horace ate and sipped his Carlsbad with as much enjoyment as many another man has felt over venison and Chambertin.
“Are they arrived, Pipo?” said he, as his servant removed the dessert of two figs and a lime.
“Yes, your Excellency, they are at table.”
“How many are there?”
“Seventeen, sir, and Mr. Brockett.”
“Did the Prince seem to—to feel my absence, Pipo?”
“I thought he appeared very sorry for your Excellency when Mr. Brockett spoke to him, and he whispered something to the aide-de-camp beside him.”
“And the others, how did they take it?”
“Count Tarrocco said he'd retire, sir, that he could not dine where the host was too ill to receive him; but the Duc de Campo Stretto said it was impossible they could leave the room while a 'Royal Highness' continued to remain in it; and they all agreed with him.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Upton, in a low tone. “I hope the dinner is a good one?”
“It is exquisite, sir; the Prince ate some of the caviare soup, and was asking a second time for the 'pain des ortolans' when I left the room.”
“And the wine, Pipo? have you given them that rare 'La Rose'?”
“Yes, your Excellency, and the 'Klausthaller cabinet;' his Royal Highness asked for it.”
“Go back, then, now. I want for nothing more; only drop in here by and by, and tell me how all goes on. Just light that pastil before you go; there—that will, do.”
And once more his Excellency was left to himself. In that vast palace,—the once home of a royal prince,—no sounds of the distant revelry could reach the remote quarter where he sat, and all was silent and still around him, and Upton was free to ruminate and reflect at ease. There was à sense of haughty triumph in thinking that beneath his roof, at that very moment, were assembled the great representatives of almost every important state of Europe, to whom he had not deigned to accord the honor of his presence; but though this thought did flit across his mind, far more was he intent on reflecting what might be the consequences—good or evil—of the incident. “And then,” said he, aloud, “how will Printing House Square treat us? What a fulminating leader shall we not have, denouncing either our insolence or our incompetence, ending with the words: 'If, then, Sir Horace Upton be not incapacitated from illness for the discharge of his high functions, it is full time for his Government to withdraw him from a sphere where his caprice and impertinence have rendered him something worse than useless;' and then will come a flood of petty corroborations,—the tourist tribe who heard of us at Berlin, or called upon as at the Hague, and whose unreturned cards and uninvited wives are counts in the long indictment against us. What a sure road to private friendships is diplomacy! How certain is one of conciliating the world's good opinion by belonging to it! I wish I had followed the law, or medicine,” muttered he; “they are both abstruse, both interesting; or been a gardener, or a shipwright, or a mathematical instrument maker, or—” Whatever the next choice might have been we know not, for he dropped off asleep.
From that pleasant slumber, and a dream of Heaven knows what life of Arcadian simplicity, of rippling streams and soft-eyed shepherdesses, he was destined to be somewhat suddenly, if not rudely, aroused, as Franchetti introduced a stranger who would accept no denial.
“Your people were not for letting me up, Upton,” cried a rich, mellow voice; and Harcourt stood before him, bronzed and weather-beaten, as he came off his journey.
“You, George? Is it possible!” exclaimed Sir Horace; “what best of all lucky winds has driven you here? I'm not sure I wasn't dreaming of you this very moment. I know I have had a vision of angelic innocence and simplicity, which you must have had your part in; but do tell me when did you arrive, and whence—”
“Not till I have dined, by Jove! I have tasted nothing since daybreak, and then it was only a mere apology for a breakfast.”
“Franchetti, get something, will you?” said Upton, languidly,—“a cutlet, a fowl; anything that can be had at once.”
“Nothing of the kind, Signor Franchetti,” interposed Harcourt; “if I have a wolfs appetite, I have a man's patience. Let me have a real dinner,—soup, fish, an entrée,—two if you like,—roast beef; and I leave the wind-up to your own discretion, only premising that I like game, and have a weakness for woodcocks. By the way, does this climate suit Bordeaux, Upton?”
“They tell me so, and mine has a good reputation.”
“Then claret be it, and no other wine. Don't I make myself at home, old fellow, eh?” said he, clapping Upton on the shoulder. “Have I not taken his Majesty's Embassy by storm, eh?”
“We surrender at discretion, only too glad to receive our vanquisher. Well, and how do you find me looking? Be candid: how do I seem to your eyes?”
“Pretty much as I have seen you these last fifteen years,—not an hour older, at all events. That same delicacy of constitution is a confounded deal better than most men's strong health, for it never wears out; but I have always said it, Upton will see us all down!”
Sir Horace sighed, as though this were too pleasant to be true.
“Well,” said he, at last, “but you have not told me what good chance has brought you here. Is it the first post-station on the way to India?”
“No; they've taken me off the saddle, and given me a staff appointment at Corfu. I 'm going out second in command there; and whether it was to prevent my teasing them for something else, or that there was really some urgency in the matter, they ordered me off at once.”
“Are they reinforcing the garrison there?” asked Upton.
“No; not so far as I have heard.”
“It were better policy to do so than to send out a 'commander-in-chief and a drummer of great experience,'” muttered Upton to himself; but Harcourt could not catch the remark. “Have you any news stirring in England? What do the clubs talk about?” asked Sir Horace.
“Glencore's business occupied them for the last week or so; now, I think, it is yourself furnishes the chief topic for speculation.”
“What of me?” asked Upton, eagerly.
“Why, the rumor goes that you are to have the Foreign Office; Adderley, they say, goes out, and Conway and yourself are the favorites, the odds being slightly on his side.”
“This is all news to me, George,” said Upton, with a degree of animation that had nothing fictitious about it; “I have had a note from Adderley in the last bag, and there's not a word about these changes.”
“Possibly; but perhaps my news is later. What I allude to is said to have occurred the day I started.”
“Ah, very true; and now I remember that the messenger came round by Vienna, sent there by Adderley, doubtless,” muttered he, “to consult Conway before seeing me; and, I have little doubt, with a letter for me in the event of Conway declining.”
“Well, have you hit upon the solution of it?” said Har-court, who had not followed him through his half-uttered observation.
“Perhaps so,” said Upton, slowly, while he leaned his head upon his hand, and fell into a fit of meditation. Meanwhile, Harcourt's dinner made its appearance, and the Colonel seated himself at the table with a traveller's appetite.
“Whenever any one has called you a selfish fellow, Upton,” said he, as he helped himself twice from the same dish, “I have always denied it, and on this good ground, that, had you been so, you had never kept the best cook in Europe, while unable to enjoy his talents. What a rare artist must this be! What's his name?”
“Pipo, how is he called?” said Upton, languidly.
“Monsieur Carmael, your Excellency.”
“Ah, to be sure; a person of excellent family. I've been told he's from Provence,” said Upton, in the same weary voice.
“I could have sworn to his birthplace,” cried Harcourt; “no man can manage cheese and olives in cookery but a Provençal. Ah, what a glass of Bordeaux! To your good health, Upton, and to the day that you may be able to enjoy this as I do,” said he, as he tossed off a bumper.
“It does me good even to witness the pleasure it yields,” said Upton, blandly.
“By Jove! then, I 'll be worth a whole course of tonics to you, for I most thoroughly appreciate all the good things you have given me. By the way, how are you off for dinner company here,—any pleasant people?”
“I have no health for pleasant people, my dear Harcourt; like horse exercise, they only agree with you when you are strong enough not to require them.”
“Then what have you got?” asked the Colonel, somewhat abashed.
“Princes, generals, envoys, and heads of departments.”
“Good heavens! legions of honor and golden fleeces!”
“Just so,” said Upton, smiling at the dismay in the other's countenance; “I have had such a party as you describe to-day. Are they gone yet, Franchetti?”
“They're at coffee, your Excellency, but the Prince has ordered his carriage.”
“And you did not go near them?” asked Harcourt, in amazement.
“No; I was poorly, as you see me,” said Upton, smiling. “Pipo tells me, however, that the dinner was a good one, and I am sure they pardon my absence.”
“Foreign ease, I've no doubt; though I can't say I like it,” muttered Harcourt. “At all events, it is not for me to complain, since the accident has given me the pleasure of your society.”
“You are about the only man I could have admitted,” said Upton, with a certain graciousness of look and manner that, perhaps, detracted a little from its sincerity.
Fortunately, not so to Harcourt's eyes, for he accepted the speech in all honesty and good faith, as he said, “Thank you heartily, my boy. The welcome is better even than the dinner, and that is saying a good deal. No more wine, thank you; I 'm going to have a cigar, and, with your leave, I 'll ask for some brandy and water.”
This was addressed to Franchetti, who speedily reappeared with a liqueur stand and an ebony cigar-case.
“Try these, George; they 're better than your own,” said Upton, dryly.
“That I will,” cried Harcourt, laughing; “I'm determined to draw all my resources from the country in occupation, especially as they are superior to what I can obtain from home. This same career of yours, Upton, strikes me as rather a good thing. You have all these things duty free?”
“Yes, we have that privilege,” said Upton, sighing.
“And the privilege of drawing some few thousand pounds per annum, paid messengers to and from England, secret-service money, and the rest of it, eh?”
Upton smiled, and sighed again.
“And what do you do for all that,—I mean, what are you expected to do?”
“Keep your party in when they are in; disconcert the enemy when your friends are out.”
“And is that always a safe game?” asked Harcourt, eagerly.
“Not when played by unskilful players, my dear George. They occasionally make sad work, and get bowled out themselves for their pains; but there's no great harm in that neither.”
“How do you mean there 's no harm in it?”
“Simply, that if a man can't keep his saddle, he ought n't to try to ride foremost; but these speculations will only puzzle you, my dear Harcourt. What of Glencore? You said awhile ago that the town was talking of him—how and wherefore was it?”
“Haven't you heard the story, then?”
“Not a word of it.”
“Well, I'm a bad narrator; besides, I don't know where to begin; and even if I did, I have nothing to tell but the odds and ends of club gossip, for I conclude nobody knows all the facts but the King himself.”
“If I were given to impatience, George, you would be a most consummate plague to me,” said Upton; “but I am not. Go on, however, in your own blundering way, and leave me to glean what I can in mine.”
Cheered and encouraged by this flattering speech, Harcourt did begin; but, more courteous to him than Sir Horace, we mean to accord him a new chapter for his revelations; premising the while to our reader that the Colonel, like the knife-grinder, had really “no story to tell.”