It was the night Lady Glencore received; and, as usual, the street was crowded with equipages, which somehow seemed to have got into inextricable confusion,—some endeavoring to turn back, while others pressed forward,—the court of the palace being closely packed with carriages which the thronged street held in fast blockade. As the apartments which faced the street were not ever used for these receptions, the dark unlighted windows suggested no remark; but they who had entered the courtyard were struck by the gloomy aspect of the vast building: not only that the entrance and the stairs were in darkness, but the whole suite of rooms, usually brilliant as the day, were now in deep gloom. From every carriage window heads were protruded, wondering at this strange spectacle; and eager inquiries passed on every side for an explanation. The explanation of “sudden illness” was rapidly disseminated, but as rapidly contradicted, and the reply given by the porter to all demands quickly repeated from mouth to mouth, “Her Ladyship will not receive.”
“Can no one explain this mystery?” cried the old Princess Borinsky, as, heavy with fat and diamonds, she hung out of her carriage window. “Oh, there 's Major Scaresby; he is certain to know, if it be anything malicious.”
Scaresby was, however, too busy in recounting his news to others to perceive the signals the old Princess held out; and it was only as her chasseur, six feet three of green and gold, bent down to give her Highness's message, that the Major hurried off, in all the importance of a momentary scandal, to the side of her carriage.
“Here I am, all impatience. What is it, Scaresby? Tell me quickly,” cried she.
“A smash, my dear Princess,—nothing more or less,” said he, in a voice which nature seemed to have invented to utter impertinences, so harsh and grating, and yet so painfully distinct in all its accents,—“as complete a smash as ever I heard of.”
“You can't mean that her fortune is in peril?”
“I suppose that must suffer also. It is her character—her station as one of us—that's shipwrecked here.”
“Go on, go on,” cried she, impatiently; “I wish to hear it all.”
“All is very briefly related, then,” said he. “The charming Countess, you remember, ran away with a countryman of mine, young Glencore, of the 8th Hussars; I used to know his father intimately.”
“Never mind his father.”
“That 's exactly what Glencore did. He came over here and fell in love with the girl, and they ran off together; but they forgot to get married, Princess. Ha—ha—ha!” And he laughed with a cackle a demon could not have rivalled.
“I don't believe a word of it,—I'll never believe it,” cried the Princess.
“That's exactly what I was recommending to the Mar-quesa Guesteni. I said, you need n't believe it. Why, how do we go anywhere, nowadays, except by 'not believing' the evil stories that are told of our entertainers.”
“Yes, yes; but I repeat that this is an infamous calumny. She, a Countess, of a family second to none in all Italy; her father a Grand d'Espagne. I 'll go to her this moment.”
“She'll not see you. She has just refused to see La Genori,” said the Major, tartly. “Though, if a cracked reputation might have afforded any sympathy, she might have admitted her.”
“What is to be done?” exclaimed the Princess, sorrowfully.
“Just what you suggested a few moments ago,—don't believe it. Hang me, but good houses and good cooks are growing too scarce to make one credulous of the ills that can be said of their owners.”
“I wish I knew what course to take,” muttered the Princess.
“I'll tell you, then. Get half a dozen of your own set together to-morrow morning, vote the whole story an atrocious falsehood, and go in a body and tell the Countess your mind. You know as well as I, Princess, that social credit is as great a bubble as commercial; we should all of us be bankrupts if our books were seen. Ay, by Jove! and the similitude goes farther too; for when one old established house breaks, there is generally a crash in the whole community around it.”
While they thus talked, a knot had gathered around the carriage, all eager to hear what opinion the Princess had formed on the catastrophe.
Various were the sentiments expressed by the different speakers,—some sorrowfully deploring the disaster; others more eagerly inveighing against the infamy of the man who had proclaimed it. Many declared that they had come to the determination to discredit the story. Not one, however, sincerely professed that he disbelieved it.
Can it be, as the French moralist asserts, that we have a latent sense of satisfaction in the misfortunes of even our best friends; or is it, as we rather suspect, that true friendship is a rarer thing than is commonly believed, and has little to do with those conventional intimacies which so often bear its name?
Assuredly of all this well-bred, well-dressed, and wellborn company, now thronging the courtyard of the palace and the street in front of it, the tone was as much sarcasm as sorrow, and many a witty epigram and smart speech were launched over a disaster which might have been spared such levity. At length the space slowly began to thin. Slowly carriage after carriage drove off,—the heaviest grief of their occupants often being over a lost soirée, an unprofited occasion to display toilette and jewels; while a few, more reflective, discussed what course was to be followed in future, and what recognition extended to the victim.
The next day Florence sat in committee over the lost Countess. Witnesses were heard and evidence taken as to her case. They all agreed it was a great hardship,—a terrible calamity; but still, if true, what could be done?
Never was there a society less ungenerously prudish, and yet there were cases—this, one of them—which transgressed all conventional rule. Like a crime which no statute had ever contemplated, it stood out self-accused and self-condemned. A few might, perhaps, have been merciful, but they were overborne by numbers. Lady Glencore's beauty and her vast fortune were now counts in the indictment against her, and many a jealous rival was not sorry at this hour of humiliation. The despotism of beauty is not a very mild sway, after all; and perhaps the Countess had exercised her rule right royally. At all events, it was the young and the good-looking who voted her exclusion, and only those who could not enter into competition with her charms who took the charitable side. They discussed and debated the question all day; but while they hesitated over the reprieve, the prisoner was beyond the law. The gate of the palace, locked and barred all day, refused entrance to every one; at night, it opened to admit the exit of a travelling-carriage. The next morning large bills of sale, posted over the walls, declared that all the furniture and decorations-were to be sold.
The Countess had left Florence, none knew whither.
“I must really have those large Sèvres jars,” said one.
“And I, the small park phaeton,” cried another.
“I hope she has not taken Horace with her; he was the best cook in Italy. Splendid hock she had,—I wonder is there much of it left?”
“I wish we were certain of another bad reputation to replace her,” grunted out Scaresby; “they are the only kind of people who give good dinners, and never ask for returns.”
And thus these dear friends—guests of a hundred brilliant fêtes—discussed the fall of her they once had worshipped.
It may seem small-minded and narrow to stigmatize such conduct as this. Some may say that for the ordinary courtesies of society no pledges of friendship are required, no real gratitude incurred. Be it so. Still, the revulsion, from habits of deference and respect, to disparagement, and even sarcasm, is a sorry evidence of human kindness; and the threshold, over which for years we had only passed as guests, might well suggest sadder thoughts as we tread it to behold desolation.
The fair Countess had been the celebrity of that city for many a day. The stranger of distinction sought her, as much as a matter of course as he sought presentation to the sovereign. Her salons had the double eminence of brilliancy in rank and brilliancy in wit; her entertainments were cited as models of elegance and refinement; and now she was gone! The extreme of regret that followed her was the sorrow of those who were to dine there no more; the grief of him who thought he should never have a house like it.
The respectable vagabonds of society are a large family, much larger than is usually supposed. They are often well born, almost always well mannered, invariably well dressed. They do not, at first blush, appear to discharge any very great or necessary function in life; but we must by no means, from that, infer their inutility. Naturalists tell us that several varieties of insect existence we rashly set down as mere annoyances, have their peculiar spheres of usefulness and good; and, doubtless, these same loungers contribute in some mysterious manner to the welfare of that state which they only seem to burden. We are told that but for flies, for instance, we should be infested with myriads of winged tormentors, insinuating themselves into our meat and drink, and rendering life miserable. Is there not something very similar performed by the respectable class I allude to? Are they not invariably devouring and destroying some vermin a little smaller than themselves, and making thus a healthier atmosphere for their betters? If good society only knew the debt it owes to these defenders of its privileges, a “Vagabonds' Home and Aged Asylum” would speedily figure amongst bur national charities.
We have been led to these thoughts by observing how distinctly different was Major Scaresby's tone in talking of the Countess when he addressed his betters or spoke in his own class. To the former he gave vent to all his sarcasm and bitterness; they liked it just because they would n't condescend to it themselves. To his own he put on the bullying air of one who said, “How should you possibly know what vices such great people have, any more than you know what they have for dinner? I live amongst them,—I understand them,—I am aware that what would be very shocking in you is quite permissible to them. They know how to be wicked; you only know how to be gross.” And thus Scaresby talked, and sneered, and scoffed, making such a hash of good and evil, such a Maelstrom of right and wrong, that it were a subtle moralist who could have extracted one solitary scrap of uncontaminated meaning from all his muddy lucubrations.
He, however, effected this much: he kept the memory of her who had gone, alive by daily calumnies. He embalmed her in poisons, each morning appearing with some new trait of her extravagance, till the world, grown sick of himself and his theme, vowed they would hear no more of either; and so she was forgotten.
Ay, good reader, utterly forgotten! The gay world, for so it likes to be called, has no greater element of enjoyment amongst all its high gifts than its precious power of forgetting. It forgets not only all it owes to others,—gratitude, honor, and esteem,—but even the closer obligations it has contracted with itself. The Palazzo della Torre was for a fortnight the resort of the curious and the idle. At the sale crowds appeared to secure some object of especial value to each; and then the gates were locked, the shutters closed, and a large, ill-written notice on the door announced that any letters for the proprietor were to be addressed to “Pietro Arretini, Via del Sole.”
British Legation, Naples. My dear Harcourt,—It would seem that a letter of mine to you must have miscarried,—a not unfrequent occurrence when entrusted to our Foreign Office for transmission. Should it ever reach you, you will perceive how unjustly you have charged me with neglecting your wishes. I have ordered the Sicilian wine for your friend; I have obtained the Royal leave for you to shoot in Calabria; and I assure you it is rather a rare incident in my life to have forgotten nothing required of me! Perhaps you, who know me well, will do me this justice, and be the more grateful for my present promptitude.
It was quite a mistake sending me here; for anything there is to be done, Spencer or Lonsdale would perfectly suffice. I ought to have gone to Vienna,—and so they know at home; but it's the old game played over again. Important questions! why, my dear friend, there is not a matter between this country and our own that rises above the capacity of a Colonel of Dragoons. Meanwhile really great events are preparing in the East of Europe,—not that I am going to inflict them upon you, nor ask you to listen to speculations which even those in authority turn a deaf ear to.
It is very kind of you to think of my health. I am still a sufferer; the old pains rather aggravated than relieved by this climate. You are aware that, though warm, the weather here has some exciting property, some excess or other of a peculiar gas in the atmosphere, prejudicial to certain temperaments. I feel it greatly; and though the season is midsummer, I am obliged to dress entirely in a light costume of buckskin, and take Marsalla baths, which refresh me, at least for the while. I have also taken to smoke the leaves of the nux vomica, steeped in arrack, and think it agrees with me. The King has most kindly placed a little villa at Ischia at my disposal; but I do not mean to avail myself of the politeness. The Duke of San Giustino has also offered me his palace at Baia; but I don't fancy leaving this just now, where there is a doctor, a certain Luigi Buffeloni, who really seems to have hit off my case. He calls it arterial arthriticis,—a kind of inflammatory action of one coat of the arterial system; his notion is highly ingenious, and wonderfully borne out by the symptoms. I wish you would ask Brodie, or any of our best men, whether they have met with this affection; what class it affects, and what course it usually takes? My Italian doctor implies that it is the passing malady of men highly excitable, and largely endowed with mental gifts. He may, or may not, be correct in this. It is only nature makes the blunder of giving the sharpest swords the weakest scabbards. What a pity the weapon cannot be worn naked!
You ask me if I like this place. I do, perhaps, as well as I should like anywhere. There is a wonderful sameness over the world just now, preluding, I have very little doubt, some great outburst of nationality from all the countries of Europe,—just as periods of Puritanism succeed intervals of gross licentiousness.
Society here is, therefore, what you see it in London or Paris; well-bred people, like Gold, are current everywhere. There is really little peculiar to observe. I don't perceive that there is more levity than elsewhere. The difference is, perhaps, that there is less shame about it, since it is under the protection of the Church.
I go out very little; my notion is, that the Diplomatist, like the ancient Augur, must not suffer himself to be vulgarized by contact. He can only lose, not gain, by that mixed intercourse with the world. I have a few who come when I want them, and go in like manner. They tell me “what is going on,” far better and more truthfully than paid employees, and they cannot trace my intentions through my inquiries, and hasten off to retail them at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Of my colleagues I see as little as possible, though, when we do meet, I feel an unbounded affection for them. So much for my life, dear Harcourt; on the whole, a very tolerable kind of existence, which if few would envy, still fewer would care to part with.
I now come to the chief portion of your letter. This boy of Glencore's, I rather like the account you give of him, better than you do yourself. Imaginative and dreamy he may be, but remember what he was, and where we have placed him. A moonstruck, romantic youth at a German University. Is it not painting the lily?
I merely intended he should go to Göttingen to learn the language,—always a difficulty, if not abstracted from other and more dulcet sounds. I never meant to have him domesticated with some rusty Hochgelehrter, eating sauer-kraut in company with a green-eyed Fraulein, and imbibing love and metaphysics together. Let him “moon away,” as you call it, my dear Harcourt. It is wonderfully little consequence what any one does with his intellect till he be three or four and twenty. Indeed, I half suspect that the soil might be left quietly to rear weeds till that time; and as to dreaminess, it signifies nothing if there be a strong “physique.” With a weak frame, imagination will play the tyrant, and never cease till it dominates over all the other faculties; but where there is strength and activity, there is no fear of this.
You amuse me with your account of the doctor; and so the Germans have actually taken him for a savant, and given him a degree “honoris causa.” May they never make a worse blunder. The man is eminently remarkable,—with his opportunities, miraculous. I am certain, Harcourt, you never felt half the pleasure on arriving at a region well stocked with game, that he did on finding himself in a land of Libraries, Museums, and Collections. Fancy the poor fellow's ecstasy at being allowed to range at will through all ancient literature, of which hitherto a stray volume alone had reached him. Imagine his delight as each day opened new stores of knowledge to him, surrounded as he was by all that could encourage zeal and reward research. The boy's treatment of him pleases me much; it smacks of the gentle blood in his veins. Poor lad, there is something very sad in his case.
You need not have taken such trouble about accounts and expenditure; of course, whatever you have done I perfectly approve of. You say that the boy has no idea of money or its value. There is both good and evil in this. And now as to his future. I should have no objection whatever to having him attached to my Legation here, and perhaps no great difficulty in effecting his appointment; but there is a serious obstacle in his position. The young men who figure at embassies and missions are all “cognate numbers.” They each of them know who and what the other is, whence he came, and so on. Now, our poor boy could not stand this ordeal, nor would it be fair he should be exposed to it. Besides this, it was never Glencore's wish, but the very opposite to it, that he should be brought prominently forward in life. He even suggested one of the Colonies as the means of withdrawing him at once, and forever, from public gaze.
You have interested me much by what you say of the boy's progress. His tastes, I infer, lie in the direction which, in a worldly sense, are least profitable; but, after all, Harcourt, every one has brains enough, and to spare, for any career. Let us only decide upon that one most fitted for him, and, depend upon it, his faculties will day by day conform to his duties, and his tastes be merely dissipations, just as play or wine is to coarser natures.
If you really press the question of his coming to me, I will not refuse, seeing that I can take my own time to consider what steps subsequently should be adopted. How is it that you know nothing of Glencore,—can he not be traced?
Lord Selby, whom you may remember in the Blues formerly, dined here yesterday, and mentioned a communication he had received from his lawyer with regard to some property entail, which, if Glencore should leave no heir male, devolved upon him. I tried to find out the whereabouts and the amount of this heritage; but, with the admirable indifference that characterizes him, he did not know or care.
As to my Lady, I can give you no information whatever. Her house at Florence is uninhabited, the furniture is sold off; but no one seems even to guess whither she has betaken herself. The fast and loose of that pleasant city are, as I hear, actually houseless since her departure. No asylum opens there with fire and cigars. A number of the destitute have come down here in half despair, amongst the rest Scaresby,—Major Scaresby, an insupportable nuisance of flat stories and stale gossip; one of those fellows who cannot make even malevolence amusing, and who speak ill of their neighbors without a single spark of wit. He has left three cards upon me, each duly returned; but I am resolved that our inter-change of courtesies shall proceed no farther.
I trust I have omitted nothing in reply to your last despatch, except it be to say that I look for you here about September, or earlier, if as convenient to you; you will, of course, write to me, however, meanwhile.
Do not mention having heard from me, at the clubs or in society. I am, as I have the right to be, on the sick list, and it is as well my rest should remain undisturbed.
I wish you had any means of making it known that the article in the “Quarterly,” on our Foreign relations, is not mine. The newspapers have coolly assumed me to be the author, and of course I am not going to give them the éclat of a personal denial. The fellow who wrote it must be an ass; since had he known what he pretends, he had never revealed it. He who wants to bag his bird, Colonel, never bangs away at nothing. I have now completed a longer despatch to you than I intend to address to the Noble Secretary at F. O., and am yours, very faithfully,
Horace Upton.
Whose Magnesia is it that contains essence of Bark? Tripley's or Chipley's, I think. Find it out for me, and send me a packet through the office; put up Fauchard's pamphlet with it, on Spain, and a small box of those new blisters,—Mouches they are called; they are to be had at Atkinson's. I have got so accustomed to their stimulating power that I never write without one or two on my forehead. They tell me the cautery, if dexterously applied, is better; but I have not tried it.
We are not about to follow up the correspondence of Sir Horace by detailing the reply which Harcourt sent, and all that thereupon ensued between them.
We pass over, then, some months of time, and arrive at the late autumn.
It is a calm, still morning; the sea, streaked with tinted shadows, is without a ripple; the ships of many nations that float on it are motionless, their white sails hung out to bleach, their ensigns drooping beside the masts. Over the summit of Vesuvius—for we are at Naples—a light blue cloud hangs, the solitary one in all the sky. A mild, plaintive song, the chant of some fishermen on the rocks, is the only sound, save the continuous hum of that vast city, which swells and falls at intervals.
Close beside the sea, seated on a rock, are two figures. One is that of a youth of some eighteen or nineteen years; his features, eminently handsome, wear an expression of gloomy pride as in deep preoccupation he gazes out over the bay; to all seeming, indifferent to the fair scene before him, and wrapped in his own sad thoughts. The other is a short, square-built, almost uncouth figure, overshadowed by a wide straw hat, which seems even to diminish his stature; a suit of black, wide and ample enough for one twice his size, gives his appearance a grotesqueness to which his features contribute their share.
It is, indeed, a strange physiognomy, to which Celt and Calmuc seem equally to contribute. The low, overhanging forehead, the intensely keen eye, sparkling with an almost imp-like drollery, are contrasted by a firmly compressed mouth and a far-projecting under-jaw that imply sternness even to cruelty; a mass of waving black hair, that covers neck and shoulders, adds a species of savagery to a head which assuredly has no need of such aid. Bent down over a large quarto volume, he never lifts his eyes; but, intently occupied, his lips are rapidly repeating the words as he reads them.
“Do you mean to pass the morning here?” asks the youth, at length, “or where shall I find you later on?”
“I 'll do whatever you like best,” said the other, in a rich brogue; “I 'm agreeable to go or stay,—ad utrumque pa-ratus.” And Billy Traynor, for it was he, shut up his venerable volume.
“I don't wish to disturb you,” said the boy, mildly, “you can read. I cannot; I have a fretful, impatient feeling over me that perhaps will go off with exercise. I'll set out, then, for a walk, and come back here towards evening, then go and dine at the Rocca, and afterwards whatever you please.”
“If you say that, then,” said Billy, in a voice of evident delight, “we'll finish the day at the Professor Tadeucci's, and get him to go over that analysis again.”
“I have no taste for chemistry. It always seems to me to end where it began,” said the boy, impatiently. “Where do all researches tend to? how are you elevated in intellect? how are your thoughts higher, wider, nobler, by all these mixings and manipulations?”
“Is it nothing to know how thunder and lightning is made; to understand electricity; to dive into the secrets of that old crater there, and see the ingredients in the crucible that was bilin' three thousand years ago?”
“These things appeal more grandly to my imagination when the mystery of their forces is unrevealed. I like to think of them as dread manifestations of a mighty will, rather than gaseous combinations or metallic affinities.”
“And what prevents you?” said Billy, eagerly. “Is the grandeur of the phenomenon impaired because it is in part intelligible? Ain't you elevated as a reasoning being when you get what I may call a peep into God's workshop, rather than by implicitly accepting results just as any old woman accepts a superstition?”
“There is something ignoble in mechanism,” said the boy, angrily.
“Don't say that, while your heart is beatin' and your arteries is contractin; never say it as long as your lungs dilate or collapse. It's mechanism makes water burst out of the ground, and, swelling into streams, flow as mighty rivers through the earth. It's mechanism raises the sap to the topmost bough of the cedar-tree that waves over Lebanon. 'T is the same power moves planets above, just to show us that as there is nothing without a cause, there is one great and final 'Cause' behind all.”
“And will you tell me,” said the boy, sneeringly, “that a sunbeam pours more gladness into your heart because a prism has explained to you the composition of light?”
“God's blessings never seemed the less to me because he taught me the beautiful laws that guide them,” said Billy, reverently; “every little step that I take out of darkness is on the road, at least, to Him.”
In part abashed by the words, in part admonished by the tone of the speaker, the boy was silent for some minutes. “You know, Billy,” said he, at length, “that I spoke in no irreverence; that I would no more insult your convictions than I would outrage my own. It is simply that it suits my dreamy indolence to like the wonderful better than the intelligible; and you must acknowledge that there never was so palatable a theory for ignorance.”
“Ay, but I don't want you to be ignorant,” said Billy, earnestly; “and there's no greater mistake than supposing that knowledge is an impediment to the play of fancy. Take my word for it, Master Charles, imagination, no more than any one else, does not work best in the dark.”
“I certainly am no adept under such circumstances,” said the boy. “I have n't told you what happened me in the studio last night. I went in without a candle, and, trying to grope my way to the table, I overturned the large olive jar, full of clay, against my Niobe, and smashed her to atoms.”
“Smashed Niobe!” cried Billy, in horror.
“In pieces. I stood over her sadder than ever she felt herself, and I have not had the courage to enter the studio since.”
“Come, come, let us see if she couldn't be restored,” said Billy, rising. “Let us go down there together.”
“You may, if you have any fancy,—there's the key,” said the boy. “I 'll return there no more till the rubbish be cleared away.” And so saying, he moved off, and was soon out of sight.
Deeply grieving over this disaster, Billy Traynor hastened from the spot, but he had only reached the garden of the Chiaja when he heard a faint, weak voice calling him by his name; he turned, and saw Sir Horace Upton, who, seated in a sort of portable arm-chair, was enjoying the fresh air from the sea.
“Quite a piece of good fortune to meet you, Doctor,” said he, smiling; “neither you nor your pupil have been near me for ten days or more.”
“'Tis our own loss then, your Excellency,” said Billy, bowing; “even a chance few minutes in your company is like whetting the intellectual razor,—I feel myself sharper for the whole day after.”
“Then why not come oftener, man? Are you afraid of wearing the steel all away?”
“'T is more afraid I am of gapping the fine edge of your Excellency by contact with my own ruggedness,” said Billy, obsequiously.
“You were intended for a courtier, Doctor,” said Sir Horace, smiling.
“If there was such a thing as a court fool nowadays, I'd look for the place.”
“The age is too dull for such a functionary. They'll not find ten men in any country of Europe equal to the office,” said Sir Horace. “One has only to see how lamentably dull are the journals dedicated to wit and drollery, to admit this fact; though written by many hands, how rare it is to chance upon what provokes a laugh. You 'll have fifty metaphysicians anywhere before you 'll hit on one Molière. Will you kindly open that umbrella for me? This autumnal sun, they say, gives sunstroke. And now what do you think of this boy? He'll not make a diplomatist, that's clear.”
“He 'll not make anything,—just for one simple reason, because he could be whatever he pleased.”
“An intellectual spendthrift,” sighed Sir Horace “What a hopeless bankruptcy it leads to!”
“My notion is 'twould be spoiling him entirely to teach him a trade or a profession. Let his great faculties shoot up without being trimmed or trained; don't want to twist or twine or turn them at all, but just see whether he won't, out of his uncurbed nature, do better than all our discipline could effect. There's no better colt than the one that was never backed till he was a five-year-old.”
“He ought to have a career,” said Sir Horace, thoughtfully. “Every man ought to have a calling, if only that he may be able to abandon it.”
“Just as a sailor has a point of departure,” said Billy.
“Precisely,” said Sir Horace, pleased at being so well appreciated.
“You are aware, Doctor,” resumed he, after a pause, “that the lad will have little or no private fortune. There are family circumstances that I cannot enter into, nor would your own delicacy require it, that will leave him almost dependent on his own efforts. Now, as time is rolling over, we should bethink us what direction it were wisest to give his talents; for he has talents.”
“He has genius and talents both,” said Billy; “he has the raw material, and the workshop to manufacture it.”
“I am rejoiced to hear such an account from one so well able to pronounce,” said Sir Horace, blandly; and Billy bowed, and blushed with a sense of happiness that none but humble men, so praised, could ever feel.
“I should like much to hear what you would advise for him,” said Upton.
“He's so full of promise,” said Billy, “that whatever he takes to he 'll be sure to fancy he 'd be better at something else. See, now,—it isn 't a bull I 'm sayin', but I 'll make a blunder of it if I try to explain.”
“Go on; I think I apprehend you.”
“By coorse you do. Well, it's that same feelin' makes me cautious of sayin' what he ought to do. For, after all, a variety of capacity implies discursiveness, and discursiveness is the mother of failure.”
“You speak like an oracle, Doctor.”
“If I do, it's because the priest is beside me,” said Billy, howmg. “My notion is this: I'd let him cultivate his fine gifts for a year or two in any way he liked,—in work or idleness; for they 'll grow in the fallow as well as in the tilled land. I 'd let him be whatever he liked,—striving always, as he's sure to be striving, after something higher, and greater, and better than he'll ever reach; and then, when he has felt both his strength and his weakness, I 'd try and attach him to some great man in public life; set a grand ambition before him, and say, 'Go on.'”
“He's scarcely the stuff for public life,” muttered Sir Horace.
“He is,” said Billy, boldly.
“He 'd be easily abashed,—easily deterred by failure.”
“Sorra bit. Success might cloy, but failure would never damp him.”
“I can't fancy him a speaker.”
“Rouse him by a strong theme and a flat contradiction, and you 'll see what he can do.”
“And then his lounging, idle habits—”
“He'll do more in two hours than any one else in two days.”
“You are a warm admirer, my dear Doctor,” said Sir Horace, smiling blandly. “I should almost rather have such a friend than the qualities that win the friendship.—Have you a message for me, Antoine?” said he to a servant who stood at a little distance, waiting the order to approach. The man came forward, and whispered a few words. Sir Horace's cheek gave a faint, the very faintest possible, sign of flush as he listened, and uttering a brief “Very well,” dismissed the messenger.
“Will you give me your arm, Doctor?” said he, languidly; and the elegant Sir Horace Upton passed down the crowded promenade, leaning on his uncouth companion, without the slightest consciousness of the surprise and sarcasm around him. No man more thoroughly could appreciate conventionalities; he would weigh the effect of appearances to the veriest nicety; but in practice he seemed either to forget his knowledge or despise it. So that, as leaning on the little dwarf's arm he moved along, his very air of fashionable languor seemed to heighten the absurdity of the contrast. Nay, he actually seemed to bestow an almost deferential attention to what the other said, bowing blandly his acquiescence, and smiling with an urbanity all his own.
Of the crowd that passed, nearly all knew the English Minister. Uncovered heads were bent obsequiously; graceful salutations met him as he went; while a hundred conjectures ran as to who and what might be his companion.
He was a Mesmeric Professor, a Writer in Cipher, a Rabbi, an Egyptian Explorer, an Alchemist, an African Traveller, and, at last, Monsieur Thiers!—and so the fine world of Naples discussed the humble individual whom you and I, dear reader, are acquainted with as Billy Traynor.
On the evening of that day the handsome saloons of the great Hôtel “Universo” were filled with a brilliant assemblage to compliment the Princess Sabloukoff on her arrival. We have already introduced this lady to the reader, and have no need to explain the homage and attention of which she was the object. There is nothing which so perfectly illustrates the maxim of ignotum pro magnifico as the career of politics; certain individuals obtaining, as they do, a pre-eminence and authority from a species of mysterious prestige about them, and a reputation of having access at any moment to the highest personage in the world of state affairs. Doubtless great ministers are occasionally not sorry to see the public full cry on a false scent, and encourage to a certain extent this mystification; but still it would be an error to deny to such persons as we speak of a knowledge, if not actually an influence, in great affairs.
When the Swedish Chancellor uttered his celebrated sarcasm on the governing capacities of Europe, the political salon, as a state engine, was not yet in existence. What additional energy might it have given to his remark, had he known that the tea-table was the chapel of ease to the council-room, and gossip a new power in the state. Despotic governments are always curious about public opinion; they dread while affecting to despise it. They, however, make a far greater mistake than this, for they imagine its true exponent to be the society of the highest in rank and station.
It is not necessary to insist upon an error so palpable, and yet it is one of which nearly every capital of Europe affords example; and the same council-chamber that would treat a popular movement with disdain would tremble at the epigram launched by some “elegant” of society. The theory is, “that the masses act, but never think; the higher ranks think, and set the rest in motion.” Whether well or ill founded, one consequence of the system is to inundate the world with a number of persons who, no matter what their station or pretensions, are no other than spies. If it be observed that, generally speaking, there is nothing worth recording; that society, too much engaged with its own vicissitudes, troubles itself little with those of the state,—let it be remembered that the governments which employ these agencies are in a position to judge of the value of what they receive; and as they persevere in maintaining them, they are, doubtless, in some degree, remunerated.
To hold this high detective employ, a variety of conditions are essential. The individual must have birth and breeding to gain access to the highest circles; conciliating manners and ample means. If a lady, she is usually young and a beauty, or has the fame of having once been such. The strangest part of all is, that her position is thoroughly appreciated. She is recognized everywhere for what she is; and yet her presence never seems to impose a restraint or suggest a caution. She becomes, in reality, less a discoverer than a depositary of secrets. Many have something to communicate, and are only at a loss as to the channel. They have found out a political puzzle, hit a state blot, or unravelled a cabinet mystery. Others are in possession of some personal knowledge of royalty. They have marked the displeasure of the Queen Dowager, or seen the anger of the Crown Prince. Profitable as such facts are, they are nothing without a market. Thus it is that these characters exercise a wider sphere of influence than might be naturally ascribed to them, and possess besides a terrorizing power over society, the chief members of which are at their mercy.
It is, doubtless, not a little humiliating that such should be the instruments of a government, and that royalty should avail itself of such agencies; but the fact is so, and perhaps an inquiry into the secret working of democratic institutions might not make one a whit more proud of Popular Sovereignty.
Amongst the proficients in the great science we speak of, the Princess held the first place. Mysterious stories ran of her acquaintance with affairs the most momentous; there were narratives of her complicity in even darker events. Her name was quoted by Savary in his secret report of the Emperor Paul's death; an allusion to her was made by one of the assassins of Murat; and a gloomy record of a celebrated incident in Louis Philippe's life ascribed to her a share in a terrible tragedy. Whether believed or not, they added to the prestige that attended her, and she was virtually a “puissance” in European politics.
To all the intriguists in state affairs her arrival was actually a boon. She could and would give them, out of her vast capital, enough to establish them successfully in trade. To the minister of police she brought accurate descriptions of suspected characters,—the signalements of Carbonari that were threatening half the thrones of Europe. To the foreign secretary she brought tidings of the favor in which a great Emperor held him, and a shadowy vision of the grand cross he was one day to have. She had forbidden books for the cardinal confessor, and a case of smuggled cigars for the minister of finance. The picturesque language of a “Journal de Modes” could alone convey the rare and curious details of dress which she imported for the benefit of the court ladies. In a word, she had something to secure her a welcome in every quarter,—and all done with a tact and a delicacy that the most susceptible could not have resisted.
If the tone and manner of good society present little suitable to description, they are yet subjects of great interest to him who would study men in their moods of highest subtlety and astuteness. To mere passing careless observation, the reception of the Princess was a crowded gathering of a number of well-dressed people, in which the men were in far larger proportion than the other sex. There was abundance of courtesy; not a little of that half-flattering compliment which is the small change of intercourse; some—not much—scandal, and a fair share of small-talk. It was late when Sir Horace Upton entered, and, advancing to where the Princess stood, kissed her gloved hand with all the submissive deference of a courtier. The most lynx-eyed observer could not have detected either in his manner or in hers that any intimacy existed between them, much less friendship; least of all, anything still closer. His bearing was a most studied and respectful homage,—hers a haughty, but condescending, acceptance of it; and yet, with all this, there was that in those around that seemed to say, “This man is more master here than any of us.” He did not speak long with the Princess, but, respectfully yielding his place to a later arrival, fell back into the crowd, and soon after took a seat beside one of the very few ladies who graced the reception. In all, they were very few, we are bound to acknowledge; for although La Sabloukoff was received at court and all the embassies, they who felt, or affected to feel, any strictness on the score of morals avoided rather than sought her intimacy.
She covered over what might have seemed this disparagement of her conduct, by always seeking the society of men, as though their hardy and vigorous intellects were more in unison with her own than the graceful attributes of the softer sex; and in this tone did the few lady friends she possessed appear also to concur. It was their pride to discuss matters of state and politics; and whenever they condescended to more trifling themes, they treated them with a degree of candor and in a spirit that allowed men to speak as unreservedly as though no ladies were present.
Let us be forgiven for prolixity, since we are speaking less of individuals than of a school,—a school, too, on the increase, and one whose results will be more widely felt than many are disposed to believe.
As the evening wore on, the guests bartered the news and bons mots; scraps of letters from royal hands were read; epigrams from illustrious characters repeated; racy bits of courtly scandal were related; and shrewd explanations hazarded as to how this was to turn out, and that was to end. It was a very strange language they talked,—so much seemed left for inference, so much seemed left to surmise. There was a shadowy indistinctness, as it were, over all; and yet their manner showed a perfect and thorough appreciation of whatever went forward. Through all this treatment of great questions, one striking feature pre-eminently displayed itself,—a keen appreciation of how much the individual characters, the passions, the prejudices, the very caprices of men in power modified the acts of their governments; and thus you constantly heard such remarks as, “If the Duke of Wellington disliked the Emperor less; or, so long as Metternich has such an attachment to the Queen Dowager; when we get over Carini's dread of the Archduchess; or, if we could only reconcile the Prince to a visit from Nesselrode,”—showing that private personal feelings were swaying the minds of those whose contemplation might have seemed raised to a far loftier level. And then what a mass of very small gossip abounded,—incidents so slight and insignificant that they only were lifted into importance by the actors in them being Kings and Kaisers! By what accidents great events were determined; on what mere trifles vast interests depended,—it were, doubtless, no novelty to record; still, it would startle many to be told that a casual pique, a passing word launched at hazard, some petty observance omitted or forgotten, have changed the destinies of whole nations.
It is in such circles as these that incidents of this kind are recounted. Each has some anecdote, trivial and unimportant it may be, but still illustrating the life of those who live under the shadow of Royalty. The Princess herself was inexhaustible in these stores of secret biography; there was not a dynastic ambition to be consolidated by a marriage, not a Coburg alliance to patch up a family compact, that she was not well versed in. She detected in the vaguest movements plans and intentions, and could read the signs of a policy in indications that others would have passed without remark.
One by one the company retired, and at length Sir Horace found himself the last guest of the evening. Scarcely had the door closed on the last departure, when, drawing his arm-chair to the side of the fire opposite to that where the Princess sat, he took out his cigar-case, and, selecting a cheroot, deliberately lighted and commenced to smoke it.
“I thought they 'd never go,” said she, with a sigh; “but I know why they remained,—they all thought the Prince of Istria was coming. They saw his carriage stop here this evening, and heard he had sent up to know if I received. I wrote on a card, 'To-morrow at dinner, at eight;' so be sure you are here to meet him.”
Sir Horace bowed, and smiled his acceptance.
“And your journey, dear Princess,” said he, between the puffs of his smoke, “was it pleasant?”
“It might have been well enough, but I was obliged to make a great détour. The Duchess detained me at Parma for some letters, and then sent me across the mountains of Pontremoli—a frightful road—on a secret mission to Massa.”
“To Massa! of all earthly places.”
“Even so. They had sent down there, some eight or nine months ago, the young Count Wahnsdorf, the Archduchess Sophia's son, who, having got into all manner of dissipation at Vienna, and lost largely at play, it was judged expedient to exile him for a season; and as the Duke of Modena offered his aid to their plans, he was named to a troop in a dragoon regiment, and appointed aide-de-camp to his Royal Highness. Are you attending; or has your Excellency lost the clew of my story?”
“I am all ears; only waiting anxiously to hear: who is she?”
“Oh, then, you suspect a woman in the case?”
“I am sure of it, dear Princess. The very accents of your voice prepared me for a bit of romance.”
“Yes, you are right; he has fallen in love,—so desperately in love that he is incessant in his appeals to the Duchess to intercede with his family and grant him leave to marry.”
“To marry whom?” asked Sir Horace.
“That's the very question which he cannot answer himself; and when pressed for information, can only reply that 'she is an angel.' Now, angels are not always of good family; they have sometimes very humble parents, and very small fortunes.”
“Hélas!” sighed the diplomatist, pitifully.
“This angel, it would seem, is untraceable. She arrived with her mother, or what is supposed to be her mother, from Corsica; they landed at Spezzia, with an English passport, calling them Madame and Mademoiselle Harley. On arriving at Massa they took a villa close to the town, and established themselves with all the circumstance of people well-off as to means. They, however, neither received visits nor made acquaintance with any one. They even so far withdrew themselves from public view that they rarely left their own grounds, and usually took their carriage-airing at night. You are not attending, I see.”
“On the contrary, I am an eager listener; only, it is a story one has heard so often. I never heard of any one preserving the incognito except where disclosure would have revealed a shame.”
“Your Excellency mistakes,” replied she; “the incognito is sometimes, like a feigned despatch in diplomacy, a means of awakening curiosity.”
“Ces ruses ne se font plus, Princess,—they were the fashion in Talleyrand's time; now we are satisfied to mystify by no meaning.”
“If the weapons of the old school are not employed, there is another reason, perhaps,” said she, with a dubious smile.
“That modern arms are too feeble to wield them, you mean,” said he, bowing courteously. “Ah! it is but too true, Princess;” and he sighed what might mean regret over the fact, or devotion to herself,—perhaps both. At all events, his submission served as a treaty of peace, and she resumed.
“And now, revenons à nos moutons,” said she, “or at least to our lambs. This Wahnsdorf is quite capable of contracting a marriage without any permission, if they appear inclined to thwart him; and the question is, What can be done? The Duke would send these people away out of his territory, only that, if they be English, as their passports imply, he knows that there will be no end of trouble with your amiable Government, which is never paternal till some one corrects one of her children. If Wahnsdorf be sent away, where are they to send him? Besides, in all these cases the creature carries his malady with him, and is sure to marry the first who sympathizes with him. In a word, there were difficulties on all sides, and the Duchess sent me over, in observation, as they say, rather than with any direct plan of extrication.”
“And you went?”
“Yes; I passed twenty-four hours. I couldn't stay longer, for I promised the Cardinal Caraffa to be in Rome on the 18th, about those Polish nunneries. As to Massa, I gathered little more than I had heard beforehand. I saw their villa; I even penetrated as far as the orangery in my capacity of traveller,—the whole a perfect Paradise. I 'm not sure I did not get a peep at Eve herself,—at a distance, however. I made great efforts to obtain an interview, but all unsuccessfully. The police authorities managed to summon two of the servants to the Podestà, on pretence of some irregularity in their papers, but we obtained nothing out of them; and, what is more, I saw clearly that nothing could be effected by a coup de main. The place requires a long siege, and I had not time for that.”
“Did you see Wahnsdorf?”
“Yes; I had him to dinner with me alone at the hotel, for, to avoid all observation, I only went to the Palace after nightfall. He confessed all his sins to me, and, like every other scapegrace, thought marriage was a grand absolution for past wickedness. He told me, too, how he made the acquaintance of these strangers. They were crossing the Magra with their carriage on a raft, when the cable snapped, and they were all carried down the torrent. He happened to be a passenger at the time, and did something very heroic, I 've no doubt, but I cannot exactly remember what; but it amounted to either being, or being supposed to be, their deliverer. He thus obtained leave to pay his respects at the villa. But even this gratitude was very measured; they only admitted him at rare intervals, and for a very brief visit. In fact, it was plain he had to deal with consummate tacticians, who turned the mystery of their seclusion and the honor vouchsafed him to an ample profit.”
“He told them his name and his rank?”
“Yes; and he owned that they did not seem at all impressed by the revelation. He describes them as very naughty, very condescending in manner, très grandes dames, in fact, but unquestionably born to the class they represent. They never dropped a hint of whence they had come, or any circumstance of their past lives, but seemed entirely engrossed by the present, which they spent principally in cultivating the arts; they both drew admirably, and the young lady had become a most skilful modellist in clay, her whole day being passed in a studio which they had just built. I urged him strongly to try and obtain permission for me to see it, but he assured me it was hopeless,—the request might even endanger his own position with them.
“I could perceive that, though very much in love, Wahns-dorf was equally taken with the romance of this adventure. He had never been a hero to himself before, and he was perfectly enchanted by the novelty of the sensation. He never affected to say that he had made the least impression on the young lady's heart; but he gave me to understand that the nephew of an Emperor need not trouble his head much on that score. He is a very good-looking, well-mannered, weak boy, who, if he only reach the age of thirty without some great blunder, will pass for a very dignified Prince for the rest of his life.”
“Did you give him any hopes?”
“Of course, if he only promised to follow my counsels; and as these same counsels are yet in the oven, he must needs wait for them. In a word, he is to write to me everything, and I to him; and so we parted.”
“I should like to see these people,” said Upton, languidly.
“I'm sure of it,” rejoined she; “but it is perhaps unnecessary;” and there was that in the tone which made the words very significant.
“Chelmsford—he 's now Secretary at Turin—might perhaps trace them,” said he; “he always knows everything of those people who are secrets to the rest of the world.”
“For the present, I am disposed to think it were better not to direct attention towards them,” replied she. “What we do here must be done adroitly, and in such a way as that it can be disavowed if necessary, or abandoned if unsuccessful.”
“Said with all your own tact, Princess,” said Sir Horace, smiling. “I can perceive, however, that you have a plan in your head already. Is it not so?”
“No,” said she, with a faint sigh; “I took wonderfully little interest in the affair. It was one of those games where the combinations are so few you don't condescend to learn it. Are you aware of the hour?”
“Actually three o'clock,” said he, standing up. “Really, Princess, I am quite shocked.”
“And so am I,” said she, smiling; “on se compromet si facilement dans ce bas monde. Good night.” And she courtesied and withdrew before he had time to take his hat and retire.