The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume II

“And this a Hungarian?” said D’Esmonde, in surprise.

“He might have been a Pole, or a Wallach, for anything I know; but he was a hussar, and as gallant a fellow as ever I saw.”

“What was the uniform, my Lord?” asked the Abbé.

“Light blue, with a green chako, – they call them the regiment of Prince Paul of Wurtemberg.”

“Tell me his probable age, my Lord; and something of his appearance generally,” said D’Esmonde, with increasing earnestness.

“His age I should guess to be two or three and twenty, – not more, certainly, and possibly even less than that In height he is taller than I, but slighter. As to face, even with all his scars and bruises, he looked a handsome fellow, and had a clear blue eye that might have become an Englishman.”

“You did not hear him speak?” asked the priest, with heightening curiosity.

“Except the few words I have mentioned, he never uttered a syllable. We learned that he had broken his arrest from one of his comrades; but the fellow, seeing our anxiety to hear more, immediately grew reserved, and would tell us nothing. I merely allude to the circumstance to show that the disaffection we trust to amongst the Hungarians is not universal; and even when they falter in their allegiance to the State, by some strange contradiction they preserve their loyalty to the ‘Kaiser.’”

“I wish I could learn more about your prisoner, my Lord,” said the Abbé, thoughtfully. “The story has interested me deeply.”

“Midchekoff can, perhaps, tell you something, then, for he saw him later than I did. He accompanied the Duke of Genoa in an inspection of the prisoners just before we left the camp.”

“And you said that he had a fair and Saxon-looking face?” said the Abbé.

“Faith, I ‘ve told you all that I know of him,” said Norwood, impatiently. “He was a brave soldier, and with ten thousand like him on our side I ‘d feel far more at my ease for the result of this campaign than with the aid of those splendid squadrons they call the ‘Speranza d’ Italia’.”

“And the Crociati, my Lord, what are they like?” said Morlache, smiling.

“A horde of robbers; a set of cowardly rascals who have only courage for cruelty; the outpourings of jails and offcasts of convents; degraded friars and escaped galley-slaves.”

“My Lord, my Lord!” interrupted Morlache, suppressing his laughter with difficulty, and enjoying to the full this torrent of indignant anger. “You are surely not describing faithfully the soldiers of the Pope, – the warriors whose banners have been blessed by the Holy Father?”

“Ask their General, Ferrari, whom they have three times attempted to murder. Ask him their character,” said Norwood, passionately, “if D’Esmonde himself will not tell you.”

“Has it not been the same in every land that ever struck a blow for liberty?” said the Abbé. “Is it the statesman or the philosopher who have racked their brains and wasted their faculties in thought for the good of their fellow-men that have gone forth to battle? or is it not rather the host of unquiet spirits who infest every country, and who seek in change the prosperity that others pursue in patient industry? Some are enthusiastic for freedom, some seek a field of personal distinction, some are mere freebooters; but whatever they be, the cause remains the same.”

“You may be right, – for all I know you are right,” said Norwood, doggedly; “but, for my own part, I have no fancy to fight shoulder to shoulder with cut-throats and housebreakers, even though the Church should have hallowed them with its blessing.” Norwood arose as he said this, And walked impatiently up and down the chamber.

“When do you propose to return to the army, my Lord?” said D’Esmonde, after a pause.

“I’m not sure; I don’t even know if I shall return at all!” said Norwood, hastily. “I see little profit and less glory in the service! What say you, Morlache? Have they the kind of credit you would like to accept for a loan?”

“No, my Lord,” said the Jew, laughing; “Lombardy scrip would stand low in our market. I ‘d rather advance my moneys on the faith of your good friend the Lady Hester Onslow.”

Norwood bit his lip and colored, but made no reply.

“She has crossed into Switzerland, has she not?” asked D’Esmonde, carelessly.

“Gone to England!” said the Viscount, briefly.

“When – how? I never heard of that,” said the Abbé. “I have put off writing to her from day to day, never suspecting that she was about to quit the Continent.”

“Nor did she herself till about a week ago, when Sir Stafford took an equally unexpected departure for the other world – ”

“Sir Stafford dead! Lady Hester a widow!”

“Such is, I believe, the natural course of things for a woman to be when her husband dies.”

“A rich widow, too, I presume, my Lord?” said the Abbé, with a quiet but subtle glance at Norwood.

“That is more than she knows herself at this moment, I fancy; for they say that Sir Stafford has involved his bequests with so many difficulties, and hampered them with such a mass of conditions, that whether she will be a millionnaire or be actually poor must depend upon the future. I can answer for one point, however, Abbé,” said he, sarcastically; “neither the Sacred College nor the blessed brethren of the ‘Pace’ are like to profit by the banker’s economies.”

“Indeed, my Lord,” said the Abbé, slowly, while a sickly pallor came over his countenance.

“He has left a certain Dr. Grounsell his executor,” continued Norwood; “and, from all that I can learn, no-man has less taste for painted windows, stoles, or saints’ shin-bones.”

“Probably there may be other questions upon which he will prove equally obdurate,” said the Abbé, in a voice only audible to the Viscount “Is her Ladyship at liberty to marry again?”

“I cannot, I grieve to say, give you any information on that point,” said Norwood, growing deep red as he spoke.

“As your Lordship is going to England – ”

“I didn’t say so. I don’t remember that I told you that!” cried he, hastily.

“Pardon me if I made such a palpable mistake; but it ran in my head that you said something to that purport.”

“It won’t do, Abbé! it won’t do,” said Norwood, in a low whisper. “We, who have graduated at the ‘Red House’ are just as wide awake as you of Louvain and St. Omer.”

D’Esmonde looked at him with an expression of blank astonishment, and seemed as if he had not the most vague suspicion as to what the sarcasm referred.

“When can I have half an hour with you, Morlache?” said the Viscount

“Whenever it suits you, my Lord. What say you to to-morrow morning at eleven?”

“No, no! let it be later; I must have a ten hours’ sleep after all this fatigue, and the sooner I begin the better.”

“Where do you put up, my Lord, – at the Hôtel de l’Arno?” asked the Abbé.

“No; I wish we were there with all my heart; but, to do us honor, they have given us quarters at the ‘Crocetto,’ that dreary asylum for stray archdukes and vagabond grand-duchesses, in the farthest end of the city. We are surrounded with chamberlains, aides-de-camp, and guards of honor. The only thing they have forgotten is a cook. So I ‘ll come and dine here to-morrow.”

“You do me great honor, my Lord. I ‘m sure the Abbé D’Esmonde will favor us with his company also.”

“If it be possible, I will,” said the Abbé. “Nothing but necessity would make me relinquish so agreeable a prospect.”

“Well, till our next meeting,” said the Viscount, yawning, as he put on his hat “It’s too late to expect Midchekoff here to-night, and so good-bye. The streets are clear by this time, I trust.”

“A shrewd fellow, too,” said Morlache, looking after him.

“No, Morlache, not a bit of it!” said D’Esmonde. “Such intellects bear about the same proportion to really clever men as a good swordsman does to a first-rate operator in surgery. They handle a coarse weapon, and they deal with coarse antagonists. Employ them in a subtle negotiation or a knotty problem, and you might as well ask a sergeant of the Blues to take up the femoral artery. Did you not remark awhile ago that, for the sake of a sneer, he actually betrayed a secret about Sir Stafford Onslow’s will?”

“And you believe all that to be true?”

“Of course I do. The only question is whether the Irish property, which, if I remember aright, was settled on Lady Hester at her marriage, can be fettered by any of these conditions? That alone amounts to some thousands a year, and would be a most grateful accession to those much-despised brethren his Lordship alluded to.”

“You can learn something about that point to-morrow, when he dines here.”

“He’ll not be our guest to-morrow, Morlache. I must continue to occupy him for a day or two. He shall be invited to dine at court to-morrow, – the request is a command, – so that you will not see him. Receive Midchekoff if he calls, for I want to hear what he is about here; his money requirements will soon give us the clew. And I, too,” said he, stretching and speaking languidly, – “I, too, would be the better of some repose; it is now thirty-six hours, Morlache, since I closed my eyes in sleep. During that space I have written and dictated and talked and argued, urging on the lukewarm, restraining the rash, giving confidence to this one, preaching caution to that; and here I am, at the end of all, with my task as far as ever from completion. Events march faster than we, do what we will; and as the child never comes up with the hoop he has set in motion till it has fallen, so we rarely overtake the circumstances we have created till they have ceased to be of any value to us. Now, at this precise moment I want to be in the Vatican, at the camp of Goito, in the council-chamber at Schönbrunn, – not to speak of a certain humble homestead in a far-away Irish county; and yet I have nothing for it but to go quietly off to bed, leaving to fortune – I believe that is as good a name for it as any other – the course of events which, were I present, I could direct at will. Napoleon left a great example behind him; he beat his enemies always by rapidity. Believe me, Morlache, men think very much upon a par in this same world of ours; the great difference being that some take five minutes where others take five weeks: the man of minutes is sure to win.”

Just as the Abbé had spoken, Norwood returned, saying, —

“By the way, can either of you tell me if Jekyl is here now?”

“I have not seen him,” said Morlache, “which is almost proof that he is not His first visit is usually to me.”

The streets were silent. A few stray lamps yet flickered over the spacious cupola of the Duomo, and a broken line of light faintly tracked one angle of the tower of the Piazza Vecchia; but except these last lingering signs of the late rejoicings, all Florence lay in darkness.

“How quiet is everything!” said Morlache, as he took leave of his guests at his door.’ “The streets are empty already.”

“Ay,” muttered the Abbé, “the rejoicing, like the victory, was but short-lived. Do our roads lie the same way, my Lord?” asked he of Norwood.

“Very seldom, I suspect,” replied the Viscount, with a laugh. “Mine is in this direction.”

“And mine lies this way,” said D’Esmonde, bowing coldly, but courteously, as he passed on, and entered the narrow street beyond the bridge. “You are quite right, my Lord,” muttered he to himself; “our paths in life are very different. Yours may be wider and pleasanter, but mine, with all its turnings, goes straighter.” He paused and listened for some seconds, till Norwood’s steps had died away in the distance, and then turning back, he followed in the direction the other had taken.

Norwood walked rapidly along till he came to that small house on the Arno where Jekyl lived, and stopping in front of it, he threw a handful of sand against the window. To this signal, twice repeated, no reply was given to the Viscount He waited a few seconds, and then moved on. The Abbé stood under the shadow of the tall palaces till the other was out of sight, and then, approaching the door, gave a long, low whistle. Within a few seconds the sash was opened, and Jekyl’s voice heard, —

“It’s you, Abbé. There ‘s the key. Will you excuse ceremony, and let yourself in?”

D’Esmonde opened the door at once, and, mounting the stairs, entered the little chamber in which now Jekyl stood in his dressing-gown and slippers; and although suddenly roused from sleep, with a smile of courteous welcome on his diminutive features, —

“I paid no attention to your first signal, Abbé,” said he, “scarcely thinking it could be you.”

“Nor was it,” said D’Esmonde, seating himself. “It was Lord Norwood, who doubtless must have had some important reason for disturbing you at this hour. I waited till he went off before I whistled. When did you arrive?”

“About three hours ago. I came from Lucerne, and was obliged to take such a zig-zag course, the roads being all blocked up by marching soldiers, guns, and wagons, that I have been eight days making the journey of three.”

“So, Lady Hester is a widow! Strange, I only heard it an hour ago.”

“The post has been interrupted, or you would have known it a week back. I wrote to you from Zurich. I accompanied her so far on her way to England, and was to have gone the whole way, too, but she determined to send me back here.”

“Not to settle her affairs in Florence,” said D’Esmonde, with a quiet slyness.

“Rather to look after Lord Norwood’s,” said Jekyl. “I never could exactly get to the bottom of the affair; but I suppose there must be some pledge or promise which, in a rash moment, she has made him, and that already she repents of.”

“How has she been left in the will?” asked D’Esmonde, abruptly.

“Her own words are, ‘Infamously treated.’ Except a bequest of ten thousand pounds, nothing beyond the Irish estate settled at the time of her marriage.”

“She will easily get rid of Norwood, then,” rejoined the Abbé, with a smile. “His price is higher.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” broke in Jekyl; “the noble Viscount’s late speculations have all proved unfortunate, even to his book on Carlo Alberto. He thinks he has gone wrong in not hedging on Radetzky.”

“What does he know of the changes of politics?” said D’Esmonde, contemptuously. “Let him stick to his stablemen and the crafty youths of Newmarket, but leave state affairs for other and very different capacities. Does she care for him, Jekyl? Does she love him?”

“She does, and she does not,” said Jekyl, with a languishing air, which he sometimes assumed when asked for an opinion. “She likes his fashionable exterior, his easy kind of drawing-room assurance, and, perhaps not least of all, the tone of impertinent superiority he displays towards all other men; but she is afraid of him, – afraid of his temper and his tyrannical humor, and terribly afraid of his extravagance.”

“How amusing it is!” said D’Esmonde, with a yawn. “A minister quits the cabinet in disgust, and retires into private life forever, when his first step is to plot his return to power. So your widow is invariably found weighing the thoughts of her mourning with speculations on a second husband. Why need she marry again; tell me that?”

“Because she is a widow, perhaps. I know no other reason,” lisped out Jekyl.

“I cannot conceive a greater folly than that of these women, with ample fortune, sacrificing their independence by marriage. The whole world is their own, if they but knew it. They command every source of enjoyment while young, and have all the stereotyped solaces of old age when it comes upon them; and with poodles, parrots, and parasites, mornings of scandal and evenings of whist, eke out a very pretty existence.”

“Dash the whole with a little religion, Abbé,” cried Jekyl, laughing, “and the picture will be tolerably correct.”

“She shall not marry Lord Norwood; that, at least, I can answer for,” said D’Esmonde, not heeding the other.

“It will be difficult to prevent it, Abbé,” said the other, dryly.

“Easier than you think for. Come, Master Jekyl, assume a serious mood for once, and pay attention to what I am about to say. This line of life you lead cannot go on forever. Even were your own great gifts to resist time and its influences, a new generation will spring up with other wants and requirements, and another race will come who knew not Joseph. With all your versatility it will be late to study new models, and acquire a new tongue. Have you speculated, then, I ask you, on this contingency?”

“I ‘ve some thoughts of a ‘monkery,’” lisped out Jekyl; “if the good folk could only be persuaded to adopt a little cleanliness.”

“Would not marriage suit you better; a rich widow, titled, well-connected, and good-looking, of fashionable habits, and tastes that resemble your own?”

“There are difficulties in the case,” said Jekyl, calmly.

“State them,” rejoined the Abbé.

“To begin. There is Lady Hester herself, – for, of course, you mean her.”

“I engage to solve all on that head.”

“Then there is the Viscount.”

“For him, too, I hold myself responsible.”

“Lastly, there is Albert Jekyl, who, however admirably he understands garçon life, might discover that the husband was not among the range of his characters. As it is, my dear Abbé, I lead a very pretty existence. I am neither bored nor tormented, I never quarrel with anybody, nor is the rudest man ever discourteous to me. I possess nothing that any one envies, except that heaven-born disposition to be pleased, of which nothing can rob me. I dine well, drive in rich equipages, and, if I liked, might ride the best horses; have at least a dozen Opera-boxes ready to receive me, and sweeter smiles to welcome me than would become me to boast of.”

“Well, then, my proposal is to give you all these on a life interest instead of being a tenant-at-will,” broke in D’Esmonde.

“And all this out of pure regard for me?” asked Jekyl, with a sly look.

“As a pure matter of bargain,” replied D’Esmonde. “Lady Hester has advanced large sams to the cause in which I am interested. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to repay them. We still want means, and that ten thousand pounds’ legacy would render us immense service at this moment. Her income can well spare the sacrifice.”

“Yes, yes,” said Jekyl, musingly; and then looking fondly at his own image in the glass, he said, “I shall be a dead bargain, after all.”

D’Esmonde bit his lip to repress some movement of impatience, and after a pause said, —

“This matter does not admit of delay. Circumstances will soon require my presence in England, and with a strong sum at my command; besides – ”

“If I understand you aright,” said Jekyl, “You are to conduct the whole negotiations to a successful end, and that I shall have neither a bill to endorse, nor a duel to fight, throughout the affair.”

“You shall be scathless.”

“There is another point,” said Jekyl, quickly. “How shall I figure in the newspapers, – Albert Jekyl, Esquire, of where? Have you thought of that? I wish I had even an uncle a baronet.”

“Pooh, pooh!” said D’Esmonde, impatiently. “You marry into the peerage; that’s quite enough.”

“Perhaps you ‘re right,” said Jekyl. “All that enumeration of family connection – ‘niece to the Chief Justice of Rembouk,’ or ‘cousin-german to the Vice-Consul at Gumdalloo’ – smacks terribly of ‘Moses and Son.’”

“We are agreed, then,” said the Abbé, rising.

“I swear,” said Jekyl, rising, and throwing out his hand in the attitude of the well-known picture of the “Marshals.” “The step that I am about to take will throw its gloom over many a dinner-party, and bring sadness into many a salon; but I ‘ll retire at least with dignity, and, like Napoleon, I’ll write my memoirs.”

“So far, then, so good,” said D’Esmonde; “now, with your leave, I throw myself on this sofa and snatch an hour’s sleep.” And ere Jekyl had arranged the folds of what he called his “sable pelisse” as a covering, the Abbé was in deep slumber.

CHAPTER XXV. PRIESTCRAFT

With less than two hours of sleep, D’Esmonde arose refreshed and ready for the day. Jekyl was not awake as the priest quitted his quarters, and, repairing to his own lodgings, dressed himself with more than usual care. Without any of the foppery of the Abbé, there was a studied elegance in every detail of his costume, and as he stepped into the carriage which awaited him, many turned their looks of admiration at the handsome priest.

“To the Crocetto,” said he, and away they went.

It was already so early that few persons were about as they drove into the court of the palace, and drew up at a private door. Here D’Esmonde got out and ascended the stairs.

“Ah, Monsignore!” said a young man, somewhat smartly Attired in a dressing-gown and velvet cap. “He did not return here last night.”

“Indeed!” said the Abbé, pondering.

“He dismissed the carriage at the Pitti, so that in all likelihood he passed the night at the palace.”

“Most probably,” said D’Esmonde, with a bland smile; And then, with a courteous “Good-morning,” he returned to his carriage.

“Where to, Signore?” asked the driver.

“Towards the Duomo,” said he. But scarcely had the man turned the second corner, than he said, “To the ‘Moskova,’ Prince Midchekoffs villa.”

“We ‘re turning our back to it, Signore. It’s on the hill of Fiesole.”

D’Esmonde nodded, but said no more. Although scarcely a league from the city, the way occupied a considerable time, being one continued and steep ascent. The Abbé was, however, too deeply engaged with his own thoughts to bestow attention on the pace they journeyed, or the scene around. He was far from being insensible to the influence of the picturesque or the beautiful; but now other and weightier considerations completely engrossed his mind, nor was he aware how the moments passed till the carriage came to a stop.

“The Prince is absent, sir, in Lombardy,” said a gruff-looking porter from within the gate.

D’Esmonde descended, and whispered some words between the bars.

“But my orders – my orders!” said the man, in a tone of deference.

“They would be peremptory against any other than me,” said D’Esmonde, calmly; and, after a few seconds’ pause, the man unlocked the gate, and the carriage passed in.

“To the back entrance,” called out D’Esmonde. And they drove into a spacious courtyard, where a number of men were engaged in washing carriages, cleaning horses, and all the other duties of the stable. One large and cumbrous vehicle, loaded with all the varied “accessories” of the road, and fortified by many a precaution against the accidents of the way, stood prominent. It was covered with stains and splashes, and bore unmistakable evidence of a long Journey. A courier, with a red-brown beard descending to his breast, was busy in locking and unlocking the boxes, as if in search of some missing article.

“How heavy the roads are in the north!” said D’Esmonde, addressing him in German.

The man touched his cap in a half-sullen civility, and muttered an assent.

“I once made the same journey myself, in winter,” resumed the Abbé, “and I remembered thinking that no man undergoes such real hardship as a courier. Sixteen, seventeen, ay, twenty days and nights of continued exposure to cold and snows, and yet obliged to have all his faculties on full stretch the whole time, to remember every post station, every bridge and ferry, – the steep mountain passes, where oxen must be hired, – the frontiers of provinces, where passports are vised.”

“Ay, and when the lazy officials will keep you standing in the deep snow a full hoar at midnight, while they ring every copeck to see it be good money.”

“That’s the true and only metal for a coinage,” said D’Esmonde, as he drew forth a gold Napoleon, and placed it in the other’s hand. “Take it, my worthy fellow,” said he; “it’s part of a debt I owe to every man who wears the courier’s jacket. Had it not been for one of your cloth, I ‘d have been drowned at the ford of Ostrovitsch.”

“It’s the worst ferry in the Empire,” said the courier. “The Emperor himself had a narrow escape there. The raft is one half too small.”

“How many days have you taken on the way?” asked D’Esmonde, carelessly

“Twenty-eight – yesterday would have made the twenty-ninth – but we arrived before noon.”

“Twenty-eight days!” repeated D’Esmonde, pondering.

“Ay, and nights too! But remember that Vradskoi Noteki is three hundred and eighty versts below St. Petersburg.”