The Child Wife

An explanation is required. In a few words it shall be given.

Shortly after Maynard had left, it became known in the Ocean House that on the morning after the ball, and at an early hour a strange gentleman arriving by the New York boat had made his way to Maynard’s room, staying with him throughout the day.

Furthermore, that a letter had been sent addressed to Mr Swinton, and delivered to his valet. The waiter to whom it had been intrusted was the authority for these statements.

What could that letter contain?

Mr Lucas should know, and Mr Lucas was asked.

But he did not know. So far from being acquainted with the contents of the letter in question, he was not even aware that an epistle had been sent.

On being told of it, he felt something like a suspicion of being compromised, and at once determined on demanding from Swinton an explanation.

With this resolve he sought the Englishman in his room.

He found him there, and with some surprise discovered him in familiar discourse with his servant.

“What’s this I’ve heard, Mr Swinton?” he asked upon entering.

“Aw – aw; what, my deaw Lucas?”

“This letter they’re talking about.”

“Lettaw – lettaw! I confess supweme ignowance of what you mean, my deaw Lucas.”

“Oh, nonsense! Didn’t you receive a letter from Maynard – the morning after the ball?”

Swinton turned white, looking in all directions except into the eyes of Lucas. He was hesitating to gain time – not with the intention of denying it. He knew that he dare not.

“Oh! yas – yas!” he replied at length. “There was a lettaw – a very queaw epistle indeed. I did not get it that day till after yaw had gone. My valet Fwank, stoopid fellow! had thrown it into a cawner. I only wed it on the following mawning.”

“You have it still, I suppose?”

“No, indeed I lit my cigaw with the absawd epistle.”

“But what was it about?”

“Well – well; it was a sort of apology on the part of Mr Maynard – to say he was compelled to leave Newport by the evening bawt. It was signed by his fwend Wupert Woseveldt, calling himself a Count of the Austwian Empire. After weading it, and knowing that the writer was gone, I didn’t think it wawth while to twouble you any fawther about the disagweeable business.”

“By Gad! Mr Swinton, that letter’s likely to get us both into a scrape!”

“But why, my deaw fellow?”

“Why? Because everybody wants to know what it was about. You say you’ve destroyed it?”

“Tore it into taypaws, I ashaw you.”

“More’s the pity. It’s well-known that a letter was sent and delivered to your servant. Of course every one supposes that it came to your hands. We’re bound to give some explanation.”

“Twue – twue. What daw you suggest, Mr Lucas?”

“Why, the best way will be to tell the truth about it. You got the letter too late to make answer to it. It’s already known why, so that, so far as you are concerned, the thing can’t be any worse. It lets Maynard out of the scrape – that’s all.”

“Yaw think we’d better make a clean bweast of it?”

“I’m sure of it. We must.”

“Well, Mr Lucas, I shall agwee to anything yaw may think pwopaw. I am so much indebted to yaw.”

“My dear sir,” rejoined Lucas, “it’s no longer a question of what’s proper. It is a necessity that this communication passed between Mr Maynard and yourself should be explained. I am free, I suppose, to give the explanation?”

“Oh, pawfectly free. Of cawse – of cawse.”

Lucas left the room, determined to clear himself from all imputation.

The outside world was soon after acquainted with the spirit, if not the contents of that mysterious epistle; which re-established the character of the man who wrote, while damaging that of him who received it.

From that hour Swinton ceased to be an eagle in the estimation of the Newport society. He was not even any longer a successful hawk – the pigeons becoming shy. But his eyes were still bent upon that bird of splendid plumage – far above all others – worth the swooping of a life!

Chapter Twenty Two.

The Conspiracy of Crowns

The revolutionary throe that shook the thrones of Europe in 1848 was but one of those periodical upheavings occurring about every half-century, when oppression has reached that point to be no longer endurable.

Its predecessor of 1790, after some fitful flashes of success, alternating with intervals of gloom, had been finally struck down upon the field of Waterloo, and there buried by its grim executioner, Wellington.

But the grave once more gave up its dead; and before this cold-blooded janissary of despotism sank into his, he saw the ghost of that Liberty he had murdered start into fresh life, and threaten the crowned tyrants he had so faithfully served.

Not only were they threatened, but many of them dethroned. The imbecile Emperor of Austria had to flee from his capital, as also the bureaucratic King of France. Weak William of Prussia was called to account by his long-suffering subjects, and compelled, upon bended knees, to grant them a Constitution.

A score of little kinglets had to follow the example; while the Pope, secret supporter of them all, was forced to forsake the Vatican – that focus and hotbed of political and religious infamy – driven out by the eloquent tongue of Mazzini and the conquering blade of Garibaldi.

Even England, secure in a profound indifference to freedom and reform, trembled at the cheers of the Chartists.

Every crowned head in Europe had its “scare” or discomfiture; and, for a time, it was thought that liberty was at length achieved.

Alas! it was but a dream of the people – short-lived and evanescent – to be succeeded by another long sleeps under an incubus, heavier and more horrid than that they had cast off.

While congratulating one another on their slight spasmodic success, their broken fetters were being repaired, and new chains fabricated, to bind them faster than ever. The royal blacksmiths were at work, and in secret, like Vulcan at his subterranean forge.

And they were working with a will, their object and interests being the same. Their common danger had driven them to a united action, and it was determined that their private quarrels should henceforth be set aside – to be resuscitated only as shams, when any of them required such fillip to stimulate the loyalty of his subjects.

This was the new programme agreed upon. But, before it could be carried out, it was necessary that certain of them should be assisted to recover that ascendency over their people, lost in the late revolution.

Sweeping like a tornado over Europe, it had taken one and all of them by surprise. Steeped in luxurious indulgence – in the exercise of petty spites and Sardanapalian excesses – confident in the vigilance of their trusted sentinel, Wellington – they had not perceived the storm till it came tearing over them. For the jailor of Europe’s liberty was also asleep! Old age, with its weakened intellect, had stolen upon him, and he still dotingly believed in “Brown Bess,” while Colt’s revolver and the needle-gun were reverberating in his ears.

Yes, the victor of Waterloo was too old to aid the sons of those tyrant sires he had re-established on their thrones.

And they had no other military leader – not one. Among them there was not a soldier, while on the side of the people were the Berns and Dembinskys, Garibaldi, Damjanich, Klapka, and Anglo-Hungarian Guyon – a constellation of flaming swords! As statesmen and patriots they had none to compete with Kossuth, Manin, and Mazzini.

In the field of fair fight – either military or diplomatic – the despots stood no chance. They saw it, and determined upon treachery.

For this they knew themselves provided with tools a plenty; but two that promised to prove specially effective – seemingly created for the occasion. One was an English nobleman – an Irishman by birth – born on the outside edge of the aristocracy; who, by ingenious political jugglery, had succeeded in making himself not only a very noted character, but one of the most powerful diplomatists in Europe.

And this without any extraordinary genius. On the contrary, his intellect was of the humblest – never rising above that of the trickster. As a member of the British Parliament his speeches were of a thoroughly commonplace kind, usually marked by some attempted smartness that but showed the puerility and poverty of his brain. He would often amuse the House by pulling off half-a-dozen pairs of white kid gloves during the delivery of one of his long written-out orations. It gave him an air of aristocracy – no small advantage in the eyes of an English audience.

For all this, he had attained to a grand degree of popularity, partly from the pretence of being on the Liberal side, but more from paltering to that fiend of false patriotism – national prejudice.

Had his popularity been confined to his countrymen, less damage might have accrued from it.

Unfortunately it was not. By a professed leaning toward the interests of the peoples, he had gained the confidence of the revolutionary leaders all over Europe; and herein lay his power to do evil.

It was by no mere accident this confidence had been obtained. It had been brought about with a fixed design, and with heads higher than his for its contrivers. In short, he was the appointed political spy of the united despots – the decoy set by them for the destruction of their common and now dreaded enemy – the Republic.

And yet that man’s name is still honoured in England, the country where, for two hundred years, respect has been paid to the traducers of Cromwell!

The second individual on whom the frightened despots had fixed their hopeful eyes was a man of a different race, though not so different in character.

He, too, had crept into the confidence of the revolutionary party by a series of deceptions, equally well contrived, and by the same contrivers who had put forward the diplomatist.

It is true, the leaders of the people were not unsuspicious of him. The hero of the Boulogne expedition, with the tamed eagle perched upon his shoulder, was not likely to prove a soldier of Freedom, nor yet its apostle; and in spite of his revolutionary professions, they looked upon him with distrust.

Had they seen him, as he set forth from England to assume the Presidency of France, loaded with bags of gold – the contributions of the crowned heads to secure it – they might have been sure of the part he was about to play.

He had been employed as a dernier ressort– a last political necessity of the despots. Twelve months before they would have scorned such a scurvy instrument, and did.

But times had suddenly changed. Orleans and Bourbon were no longer available. Both dynasties were defunct, or existing without influence. There was but one power that could be used to crush republicanism in France – the prestige of that great name, Napoleon, once more in the full sunlight of glory, with its sins forgiven and forgotten.

He who now represented it was the very man for the work, for his employers knew it was a task congenial to him.

With coin in his purse, and an imperial crown promised for his reward, he went forth, dagger in hand, sworn to stab Liberty to the heart!

History records how faithfully he has kept his oath!

Chapter Twenty Three.

The Programme of the Great Powers

In a chamber of the Tuileries five men were seated around a table.

Before them were decanters and glasses, wine bottles of varied shapes, an épergne filled with choice flowers, silver trays loaded with luscious fruits, nuts, olives – in short, all the materials of a magnificent dessert.

A certain odour of roast meats, passing off under the bouquet of the freshly-decanted wines, told of a dinner just eaten, the dishes having been carried away.

The gentlemen had taken to cigars, and the perfume of finest Havana tobacco was mingling with the aroma of the fruit and flowers. Smoking, sipping, and chatting with light nonchalance, at times even flippantly, one could ill have guessed the subject of their conversation.

And yet it was of so grave and secret a nature, that the butler and waiters had been ordered not to re-enter the room – the double door having been close-shut on their dismissal – while in the corridor outside a guard was kept by two soldiers in grenadier uniform.

The five men, thus cautious against being overheard, were the representatives of the Five Great Powers of Europe – England, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and France.

They were not the ordinary ambassadors who meet to arrange some trivial diplomatic dispute, but plenipotentiaries with full power to shape the destinies of a continent.

And it was this that had brought together that five-cornered conclave, consisting of an English Lord, an Austrian Field-Marshal, a Russian Grand Duke, a distinguished Prussian diplomatist, and the President of France – host of the other four.

They were sitting in conspiracy against the peoples of Europe, set free by the late revolutions – with the design to plot their re-enslavement.

Their scheme of infamy had been maturely considered, and perfected before adjourning to the dinner-table.

There had been scarce any discussion; since, upon its main points, there was mutual accord.

Their after-dinner conversation was but a résumé of what had been resolved upon – hence, perhaps, the absence of that gravity befitting such weighty matter, and which had characterised their conference at an earlier hour.

They were now resting over their cigars and wines, jocularly agreeable, as a band of burglars, who have arranged all the preliminaries for the “cracking of a crib.”

The English lord seemed especially in good humour with himself and all the others. Distinguished throughout his life for what some called an amiable levity, but others thought to be an unamiable heartlessness, he was in the element to delight him. Of origin not very noble, he had attained to the plenitude of power, and now saw himself one of five men entrusted with the affairs of the Great European Aristocracy, against the European people. He had been one of the principal plotters – suggesting many points of the plan that had been agreed upon; and from this, as also the greatness of the nation he represented, was acknowledged as having a sort of tacit chairmanship over his fellow-conspirators.

The real presidency, however, was in the Prince-President – partly out of regard to his high position, and partly that he was the host.

After an hour or so passed in desultory conversation, the “man of a mission,” standing with his back to the fire, with hands parting his coat tails – the habitual attitude of the Third Napoleon – took the cigar from between his teeth, and made résumé as follows: —

“Understood, then, that you, Prussia, send a force into Baden, sufficient to crush those pot-valiant German collegians, mad, no doubt, from drinking your villainous Rhine wine!”

“Mercy on Metternich, cher Président. Think of Johanisberger!”

It was the facetious Englishman who was answerable for this.

“Ya, mein Prinz, ya,” was the more serious response of the Prussian diplomatist. “Give ’em grape, instead of grapes,” put in the punster. “And you, Highness, bind Russia to do the same for these hog-drovers of the Hungarian Puszta?”

“Two hundred thousand men are ready to march down upon them,” responded the Grand Duke.

“Take care you don’t catch a Tartar, mon cher altesse!” cautioned the punning plenipotentiary.

“You’re quite sure of Geörgei, Marshal?” went on the President, addressing himself to the Austrian.

“Quite. He hates this Kossuth as the devil himself; and perhaps a little worse. He’d see him and his Honveds at the bottom of the Danube; and I’ve no doubt will hand them over, neck and crop, as soon as our Russian allies show themselves over the frontier.”

“And a crop of necks you intend gathering, I presume?” said the heartless wit.

“Très bien!” continued the President, without noticing the sallies of his old friend, the lord. “I, on my part, will take care of Italy. I think I can trust superstition to assist me in restoring poor old Pio Nono.”

“Your own piety will be sufficient excuse for that, mon Prince. ’Tis a holy crusade, and who more fitted than you to undertake it? With Garibaldi for your Saladin, you will be called Louis of the Lion-heart!”

The gay viscount laughed at his own conceit; the others joining him in the cachinnation.

“Come, my lord!” jokingly rejoined the Prince-President, “it’s not meet for you to be merry. John Bull has an easy part to play in this grand game!”

“Easy, you call it? He’s got to provide the stakes – the monisch. And, after all, what does he gain by it?”

“What does he gain by it? Pardieu! You talk that way in memory of your late scare by the Chartists? Foi d’honnête homme! if I hadn’t played special constable for him, you, cher vicomte, instead of being here as a plenipotentiary, might have been this day enjoying my hospitality as an exile!”

“Ha – ha – ha! Ha – ha – ha!”

Grave Sclave, and graver Teuton – Russia, Prussia, and Austria – took part in the laugh; all three delighted with this joke at the Englishman’s expense.

But their débonnaire fellow-conspirator felt no spite at his discomfiture; else he might have retorted by saying:

“But for John Bull, my dear Louis Napoleon, and that service you pretend to make light of, even the purple cloak of your great uncle, descending as if from the skies, and flouted in the eyes of France, might not have lifted you into the proud position you now hold – the chair of a President, perhaps to be yet transformed into the throne of an Emperor!”

But the Englishman said naught of this. He was too much interested in the hoped-for transformation to make light of it just then; and instead of giving rejoinder, he laughed loud as any of them.

A few more glasses of Moët and Madeira, with a “tip” of Tokay to accommodate the Austrian Field-Marshal, another regalia smoked amidst more of the same kind of persiflage, and the party separated.

Two only remained – Napoleon and his English guest.

It is possible – and rather more than probable – that two greater chicanes never sat together in the same room!

I anticipate the start which this statement will call forth – am prepared for the supercilious sneer. It needs experience, such as revolutionary leaders sometimes obtain, to credit the scoundrelism of conspiring crowns; though ten minutes spent in listening to the conversation that followed would make converts of the most incredulous.

There was no lack of confidence between the two men. On the contrary, theirs was the thickness of thieves; and much in this light did they look upon one another.

But they were thieves on a grand scale, who had stolen from France one-half of its liberty, and were now plotting to deprive it of the other.

Touching glasses, they resumed discourse, the Prince speaking first:

“About this purple robe? What step should be taken? Until I’ve got that on my shoulders, I feel weak as a cat. The Assembly must be consulted about everything. Even this paltry affair of restoring the Pope will cost me a herculean effort.”

The English plenipotentiary did not make immediate reply. Tearing a kid glove between his fingers, he sat reflecting – his very common face contorted with an expression that told of his being engaged in some perplexing calculation.

“You must make the Assembly more tractable,” he at length replied, in a tone that showed the joking humour had gone out of him.

“True. But how is that to be done?”

“By weeding it.”

“Weeding it?”

“Yes. You must get rid of the Blancs, Rollins, Barbes, and all that canaille.”

“Eh bien! But how?”

“By disfranchising their sans culottes constituency – the blouses.”

“Mon cher vicomte! You are surely jesting?”

“No, mon cher prince. I’m in earnest.”

“Sacré! Such a bill brought before the Assembly would cause the members to be dragged from their seats. Disfranchise the blouse voters! Why, there are two millions of them?”

“All the more reason for your getting rid of them. And it can be done. You think there’s a majority of the deputies who would be in favour of it?”

“I’m sure there is. As you know, we’ve got the Assembly packed with the representatives of the old régime. The fear would be from the outside rabble. A crowd would be certain to gather, if such an act was in contemplation, and you know what a Parisian crowd is, when the question is political?”

“But I’ve thought of a way of scattering your crowd, or rather hindering it from coming together.”

“What way, mon cher!”

“We must get up the comb of the Gallic cock – set his feathers on end.”

“I don’t comprehend you.”

“It’s very simple. On our side we’ll insult your ambassador, De Morny – some trifling affront that can be afterward explained and apologised for. I’ll manage that. You then recall him in great anger, and let the two nations be roused to an attitude of hostility. An exchange of diplomatic notes, with sufficient and spiteful wording, some sharp articles in the columns of your Paris press – I’ll see to the same on our side – the marching hither and thither of a half-dozen regiments, a little extra activity in the dockyards and arsenals, and the thing’s done. While the Gallic cock is crowing on one side of the Channel, and the British bull-dog barking on the other, your Assembly may pass the disfranchising act without fear of being disturbed by the blouses. Take my word it can be done.”

“My lord! you’re a genius!”

“There’s not much genius in it. It’s simple as a game of dominoes.”

“It shall be done. You promise to kick De Morny out of your court. Knowing the reason, no man will like it better than he!”

“I promise it.”

The promise was kept. De Morny was “kicked out” with a silken slipper, and the rest of the programme was carried through – even to the disfranchising of the blouses.

It was just as the English diplomat had predicted. The French people, indignant at the supposed slight to their ambassador, in their mad hostility to England, lost tight of themselves; and while in this rabid condition, another grand slice was quietly cut from their fast attenuating freedom.

And the programme of that more extensive, and still more sanguinary, conspiracy was also carried out to the letter.

Before the year had ended, the perjured King of Prussia had marched his myrmidons into South Germany, trampling out the revived flame of Badish and Bavarian revolution; the ruffian soldiers of the Third Napoleon had forced back upon the Roman people their detested hierarch; while a grand Cossack army of two hundred thousand men was advancing iron-heeled over the plain of the Puszta to tread out the last spark of liberty in the East.

This is not romance: it is history!

Chapter Twenty Four.

A Treacherous Staging

Men make the crossing of the Atlantic in a Cunard steamer, sit side by side, or vis-à-vis, at the same table, three and sometimes four times a day, without ever a word passing between them, beyond the formulary “May I trouble you for the castors?” or “The salt, please?”

They are usually men who have a very beautiful wife, a rich marriageable daughter, or a social position of which they are proud.

No doubt these vulnerable individuals lead a very unhappy life of it on board ship; especially when the cabin is crowded, and the company not over select.

This occurs on a Cunarder only when the Canadian shopkeepers are flocking for England, to make their fall purchases in the Manchester market. Then, indeed, the crossing of the Atlantic is a severe trial to a gentleman, whether he be English or American.

The Cambria was full of them; and their company might have tried Sir George Vernon, who was one of the assailable sort described. But as these loyal transatlantic subjects of England had heard that he was Sir George Vernon, late governor of B – , it was hands off with them, and the ex-governor was left to his exclusiveness.

For the very opposite reason was their company less tolerable to the Austrian Count; who, republican as he was, could not bear the sight of them. Their loyalty stank in his nostrils; and he seemed to long for an opportunity of pitching one of them overboard.