Book: My Novel, Volume 8.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> My Novel, Volume 8.







CHAPTER XI.

Violante was seated in her own little room, and looking from the window
on the terrace that stretched below. The day was warm for the time of
year. The orange-trees had been removed under shelter for the approach
of winter; but where they had stood sat Mrs. Riccabocca at work. In the
belvidere, Riccabocca himself was conversing with his favourite servant.
But the casements and the door of the belvidere were open; and where they
sat, both wife and daughter could see the padrone leaning against the
wall, with his arms folded and his eyes fixed on the floor; while
Jackeymo, with one finger on his master's arm, was talking to him with
visible earnestness. And the daughter from the window and the wife from
her work directed tender, anxious eyes towards the still, thoughtful form
so dear to both. For the last day or two, Riccabocca had been peculiarly
abstracted, even to gloom. Each felt there was something stirring at his
heart,--neither, as yet, knew what.

Violante's room silently revealed the nature of the education by which
her character had been formed. Save a sketchbook, which lay open on a
desk at hand, and which showed talent exquisitely taught (for in this
Riccabocca had been her teacher), there was nothing that spoke of the
ordinary female accomplishments. No piano stood open, no harp occupied
yon nook, which seemed made for one; no broidery-frame, nor implements of
work, betrayed the usual and graceful resources of a girl; but ranged on
shelves against the wall were the best writers in English, Italian, and
French; and these betokened an extent of reading, that he who wishes for
a companion to his mind in the sweet commune of woman, which softens and
refines all it gives and takes in interchange, will never condemn as
masculine. You had but to look into Violante's face to see how noble was
the intelligence that brought soul to those lovely features. Nothing
hard, nothing dry and stern was there. Even as you detected knowledge,
it was lost in the gentleness of grace. In fact, whatever she gained in
the graver kinds of information became transmuted, through her heart and
her fancy, into spiritual, golden stores. Give her some tedious and arid
history, her imagination seized upon beauties other readers had passed
by, and, like the eye of the artist, detected everywhere the Picturesque.
Something in her mind seemed to reject all that was mean and commonplace,
and to bring out all that was rare and elevated in whatever it received.
Living so apart from all companions of her age, she scarcely belonged to
the present time. She dwelt in the Past, as Sabrina in her crystal well.
Images of chivalry, of the Beautiful and the Heroic,--such as, in reading
the silvery line of Tasso, rise before us, softening force and valour
into love and song,--haunted the reveries of the fair Italian maid.

Tell us not that the Past, examined by cold Philosophy, was no better and
no loftier than the Present: it is not thus seen by pure and generous
eyes. Let the Past perish, when it ceases to reflect on its magic mirror
the beautiful Romance which is its noblest reality, though perchance but
the shadow of Delusion.

Yet Violante was not merely the dreamer. In her, life was so puissant
and rich, that action seemed necessary to its glorious development,--
action, but still in the woman's sphere,--action to bless and to refine
and to exalt all around her, and to pour whatever else of ambition was
left unsatisfied into sympathy with the aspirations of man. Despite her
father's fears of the bleak air of England, in that air she had
strengthened the delicate health of her childhood. Her elastic step, her
eyes full of sweetness and light, her bloom, at once soft and luxuriant,
--all spoke of the vital powers fit to sustain a mind of such exquisite
mould, and the emotions of a heart that, once aroused, could ennoble the
passions of the South with the purity and devotion of the North.
Solitude makes some natures more timid, some more bold. Violante was
fearless. When she spoke, her eyes frankly met your own; and she was so
ignorant of evil, that as yet she seemed nearly unacquainted with shame.
From this courage, combined with affluence of idea, came a delightful
flow of happy converse. Though possessing so imperfectly the
accomplishments ordinarily taught to young women, and which may be
cultured to the utmost, and yet leave the thoughts so barren, and the
talk so vapid, she had that accomplishment which most pleases the taste,
and commands the love, of the man of talent; especially if his talent be
not so actively employed as to make him desire only relaxation where he
seeks companionship,--the accomplishment of facility in intellectual
interchange, the charm that clothes in musical words beautiful womanly
ideas.

"I hear him sigh at this distance," said Violante, softly, as she still
watched her father; "and methinks this is a new grief, and not for his
country. He spoke twice yesterday of that dear English friend, and
wished that he were here."

As she said this, unconsciously the virgin blushed, her hands drooped on
her knee, and she fell herself into thought as profound as her father's,
but less gloomy. From her arrival in England, Violante had been taught a
grateful interest in the name of Harley L'Estrange. Her father,
preserving a silence that seemed disdain of all his old Italian
intimates, had been pleased to converse with open heart of the Englishman
who had saved where countrymen had betrayed. He spoke of the soldier,
then in the full bloom of youth, who, unconsoled by fame, had nursed the
memory of some hidden sorrow amidst the pine-trees that cast their shadow
over the sunny Italian lake; how Riccabocca, then honoured and happy, had
courted from his seclusion the English signore, then the mourner and the
voluntary exile; how they had grown friends amidst the landscapes in
which her eyes had opened to the day; how Harley had vainly warned him
from the rash schemes in which he had sought to reconstruct in an hour
the ruins of weary ages; how, when abandoned, deserted, proscribed,
pursued, he had fled for life, the infant Violante clasped to his bosom,
the English soldier had given him refuge, baffled the pursuers, armed his
servants, accompanied the fugitive at night towards the defile in the
Apennines, and, when the emissaries of a perfidious enemy, hot in the
chase, came near, had said, "You have your child to save! Fly on!
Another league, and you are beyond the borders. We will delay the foes
with parley; they will not harm us." And not till escape was gained did
the father know that the English friend had delayed the foe, not by
parley, but by the sword, holding the pass against numbers, with a breast
as dauntless as Bayard's on the glorious bridge.

And since then, the same Englishman had never ceased to vindicate his
name, to urge his cause; and if hope yet remained of restoration to land
and honours, it was in that untiring zeal.

Hence, naturally and insensibly, this secluded and musing girl had
associated all that she read in tales of romance and chivalry with the
image of the brave and loyal stranger. He it was who animated her
drearhs of the Past, and seemed born to be, in the destined hour, the
deliverer of the Future. Around this image grouped all the charms that
the fancy of virgin woman can raise from the enchanted lore of old Heroic
Fable. Once in her early girlhood, her father (to satisfy her curiosity,
eager for general description) had drawn from memory a sketch of the
features of the Englishman,--drawn Harley, as he was in that first youth,
flattered and idealized, no doubt, by art, and by partial gratitude, but
still resembling him as he was then, while the deep mournfulness of
recent sorrow yet shadowed and concentrated all the varying expressions
of his countenance; and to look on him was to say, "So sad, yet so
young!" Never did Violante pause to remember that the same years which
ripened herself from infancy into woman were passing less gently over
that smooth cheek and dreamy brow,--that the world might be altering the
nature as time the aspect. To her the hero of the Ideal remained
immortal in bloom and youth. Bright illusion, common to us all, where
Poetry once hallows the human form! Who ever thinks of Petrarch as the
old, timeworn man? 'Who does not see him as when he first gazed on
Laura?--

"Ogni altra cosa ogni pensier va fore;
E sol ivi con voi rimansi Amore!"




CHAPTER XII.

And Violante, thus absorbed in revery, forgot to keep watch on the
belvidere. And the belvidere was now deserted. The wife, who had no
other ideal to distract her thoughts, saw Riccabocca pass into the house.

The exile entered his daughter's room, and she started to feel his hand
upon her locks and his kiss upon her brow. "My child!" cried Riccabocca,
seating himself, "I have resolved to leave for a time this retreat, and
to seek the neighbourhood of London."

"Ah, dear father, that, then, was your thought? But what can be your
reason? Do not turn away; you know how care fully I have obeyed your
command and kept your secret. Ah, you will confide in me."

"I do, indeed," returned Riccabocca, with emotion. "I leave this place
in the fear lest my enemies discover me. I shall say to others that you
are of an age to require teachers not to be obtained here, but I should
like none to know where we go."

The Italian said these last words through his teeth, and hanging his
head. He said them in shame.

"My mother--[so Violante always called Jemima]--my mother--you have
spoken to her?"

"Not yet. THERE is the difficulty."

"No difficulty, for she loves you so well," replied Violante, with soft
reproach. "Ah, why not also confide in her? Who so true, so good?"

"Good--I grant it!" exclaimed Riccabocca. "What then? 'Da cattiva Donna
guardati, ed alla buona non fidar niente.'--["From the bad woman, guard
thyself; to the good woman trust nothing."]--And if you must trust,"
added the abominable man, "trust her with anything but a secret!"

"Fie," said Violante, with arch reproach, for she knew her father's
humours too well to interpret his horrible sentiments literally,--"fie on
your consistency, Padre Carissimo. Do you not trust your secret to me?"

"You! A kitten is not a cat, and a girl is not a woman. Besides, the
secret was already known to you, and I had no choice. Peace, Jemima will
stay here for the present. See to what you wish to take with you; we
shall leave to-night." Not waiting for an answer, Riccabocca hurried
away, and with a firm step strode the terrace, and approached his wife.
"Anima mia," said the pupil of Machiavelli, disguising in the tenderest
words the cruellest intentions,--for one of his most cherished Italian
proverbs was to the effect that there is no getting on with a mule or a
woman unless you coax them,--"Anima mia, soul of my being, you have
already seen that Violante mopes herself to death here."

"She, poor child! Oh, no!"

"She does, core of my heart,--she does, and is as ignorant of music as I
am of tent-stitch."

"She sings beautifully."

"Just as birds do, against all the rules, and in defiance of gamut.
Therefore, to come to the point, O treasure of my soul! I am going to
take her with me for a short time, perhaps to Cheltenham or Brighton. We
shall see."

"All places with you are the same to me, Alphonso. When shall we go?"

"We shall go to-night; but terrible as it is to part from you,--you--"

"Ah!" interrupted the wife, and covered her face with her hands.

Riccabocca, the wiliest and most relentless of men in his maxims, melted
into absolute uxorial imbecility at the sight of that mute distress. He
put his arm round his wife's waist, with genuine affection, and without a
single proverb at his heart. "Carissima, do not grieve so; we shall be
back soon, and travelling is expensive; rolling stones gather no moss,
and there is so much to see to at home."

Mrs. Riccabocca gently escaped from her husband's arm. She withdrew her
hands from her face and brushed away the tears that stood in her eyes.

"Alphonso," she said touchingly, "hear me! What you think good, that
shall ever be good to me. But do not think that I grieve solely because
of our parting. No; I grieve to think that, despite all these years in
which I have been the partner of your hearth, and slept on your breast,--
all these years in which I have had no thought but, however humbly, to do
my duty to you and yours, and could have wished that you had read my
heart, and seen there but yourself and your child,--I grieve to think
that you still deem me as unworthy your trust as when you stood by my
side at the altar."

"Trust!" repeated Riccabocca, startled and conscience-stricken; "why do
you say 'trust'? In what have I distrusted you? I am sure," he
continued, with the artful volubility of guilt, "that I never doubted
your fidelity, hook-nosed, long-visaged foreigner though I be; never
pryed into your letters; never inquired into your solitary walks; never
heeded your flirtations with that good-looking Parson Dale; never kept
the money; and never looked into the account-books!" Mrs. Riccabocca
refused even a smile of contempt at these revolting evasions; nay, she
seemed scarcely to hear them.

"Can you think," she resumed, pressing her hand on her heart to still its
struggles for relief in sobs,--"can you think that I could have watched
and thought and taxed my poor mind so constantly, to conjecture what
might best soothe or please you, and not seen, long since, that you have
secrets known to your daughter, your servant, not to me? Fear not,--the
secrets cannot be evil, or you would not tell them to your innocent
child. Besides, do I not know your nature; and do I not love you because
I know it?--it is for something connected with those secrets that you
leave your home. You think that I should be incautious, imprudent. You
will not take me with you. Be it so. I go to prepare for your
departure. Forgive me if I have displeased you, husband." Mrs.
Riccabocca turned away; but a soft hand touched the Italian's arm.
"O Father, can you resist this? Trust her! trust her!---I am a woman
like her! I answer for her woman's faith. Be yourself,--ever nobler
than all others, my own father."

"Diavolo! Never one door shuts but another opens," groaned Riccabocca.
"Are you a fool, child? Don't you see that it was for your sake only I
feared, and would be cautious?"

"For mine! Oh, then do not make me deem myself mean, and the cause of
meanness. For mine! Am I not your daughter,--the descendant of men who
never feared?" Violante looked sublime while she spoke; and as she ended
she led her father gently on towards the door, which his wife had now
gained.

"Jemima, wife mine! pardon, pardon," cried the Italian, whose heart had
been yearning to repay such tenderness and devotion,--"come back to my
breast--it has been long closed,--it shall be open to you now and
forever."

In another moment the wife was in her right place,--on her husband's
bosom; and Violante, beautiful peacemaker, stood smiling awhile at both,
and then lifted her eyes gratefully to heaven and stole away.




CHAPTER XIII.

On Randal's return to town, he heard mixed and contradictory rumours in
the streets, and at the clubs, of the probable downfall of the Government
at the approaching session of parliament. These rumours had sprung up
suddenly, as if in an hour. True that, for some time, the sagacious had
shaken their heads and said, "Ministers could not last." True, that
certain changes in policy, a year or two before, had divided the party
on which the Government depended, and strengthened that which opposed it.
But still the more important members of that Government had been so long
identified with official station, and there seemed so little power in the
Opposition to form a Cabinet of names familiar to official ears, that the
general public had anticipated, at most, a few partial changes. Rumour
now went far beyond this. Randal, whose whole prospects at present were
but reflections from the greatness of his patron, was alarmed. He sought
Egerton, but the minister was impenetrable, and seemed calm, confident,
and imperturbed. Somewhat relieved, Randal then set himself to work to
find a safe home for Riccabocca; for the greater need to succeed in
obtaining fortune there, if he failed in getting it through Egerton.
He found a quiet house, detached and secluded, in the neighbourhood of
Norwood. No vicinity more secure from espionage and remark. He wrote to
Riccabocca, and communicated the address, adding fresh assurances of his
own power to be of use. The next morning he was seated in his office,
thinking very little of the details, that he mastered, however, with
mechanical precision, when the minister who presided over that department
of the public service sent for him into his private room, and begged him
to take a letter to Egerton, with whom he wished to consult relative to a
very important point to be decided in the Cabinet that day. "I want you
to take it," said the minister, smiling (the minister was a frank homely
man), "because you are in Mr. Egerton's confidence, and he may give you
some verbal message besides a written reply. Egerton is often over
cautious and brief in the litera scripta."

Randal went first to Egerton's neighbouring office--Egerton had not been
there that day. He then took a cabriolet and drove to Grosvenor Square.
A quiet-looking chariot was at the door. Mr. Egerton was at home; but
the servant said, "Dr. F----- is with him, sir; and perhaps he may not
like to be disturbed."

"What! is your master ill?"

"Not that I know of, sir. He never says he is ill. But he has looked
poorly the last day or two."

Randal hesitated a moment; but his commission might be important, and
Egerton was a man who so held the maxim that health and all else must
give way to business, that he resolved to enter; and, unannounced and
unceremoniously, as was his wont, he opened the door of the library. He
started as he did so. Audley Egerton was leaning back on the sofa, and
the doctor, on his knees before him, was applying the stethoscope to his
breast. Egerton's eyes were partially closed as the door opened. But at
the noise he sprang up, nearly oversetting the doctor. "Who's that? How
dare you?" he exclaimed, in a voice of great anger. Then recognizing
Randal, he changed colour, bit his lip, and muttered dryly, "I beg pardon
for my abruptness; what do you want, Mr. Leslie?"

"This letter from Lord--; I was told to deliver it immediately into your
own hands. I beg pardon--"

"There is no cause," said Egerton, coldly. "I have had a slight attack
of bronchitis; and as parliament meets so soon, I must take advice from
my doctor, if I would be heard by the reporters. Lay the letter on the
table, and be kind enough to wait for my reply."

Randal withdrew. He had never seen a physician in that house before, and
it seemed surprising that Egerton should even take a medical opinion upon
a slight attack. While waiting in the ante-room there was a knock at the
street door, and presently a gentleman, exceedingly well dressed, was
shown in, and honoured Randal with an easy and half-familiar bow. Randal
remembered to have met this personage at dinner, and at the house of a
young nobleman of high fashion, but had not been introduced to him, and
did not even know him by name. The visitor was better informed.

"Our friend Egerton is busy, I hear, Mr. Leslie," said he, arranging the
camellia in his button-hole.

"Our friend Egerton!" It must be a very great man to say "Our friend
Egerton."

"He will not be engaged long, I dare say," returned Randal, glancing his
shrewd inquiring eye over the stranger's person.

"I trust not; my time is almost as precious as his own. I was not so
fortunate as to be presented to you when we met at Lord Spendquick's.
Good fellow, Spendquick; and decidedly clever."

Lord Spendquick was usually esteemed a gentleman without three ideas.

Randal smiled.

In the mean while the visitor had taken out a card from an embossed
morocco case, and now presented it to Randal, who read thereon, "Baron
Levy, No.--, Bruton St."

The name was not unknown to Randal. It was a name too often on the lips
of men of fashion not to have reached the ears of an habitue of good
society.

Mr. Levy had been a solicitor by profession. He had of late years
relinquished his ostensible calling: and not long since, in consequence
of some services towards the negotiation of a loan, had been created a
baron by one of the German kings. The wealth of Mr. Levy was said to be
only equalled by his good-nature to all who were in want of a temporary
loan, and with sound expectations of repaying it some day or other.

You seldom saw a finer-looking man than Baron Levy, about the same age as
Egerton, but looking younger: so well preserved, such magnificent black
whiskers, such superb teeth! Despite his name and his dark complexion,
he did not, however, resemble a Jew,--at least externally; and, in fact,
he was not a Jew on the father's side, but the natural son of a rich
English grand seigneur, by a Hebrew lady of distinction--in the opera.
After his birth, this lady had married a German trader of her own
persuasion, and her husband had been prevailed upon, for the convenience
of all parties, to adopt his wife's son, and accord to him his own Hebrew
name. Mr. Levy, senior, was soon left a widower, and then the real
father, though never actually owning the boy, had shown him great
attention,--had him frequently at his house, initiated him betimes into
his own high-born society, for which the boy showed great taste. But
when my Lord died, and left but a moderate legacy to the younger Levy,
who was then about eighteen, that ambiguous person was articled to an
attorney by his putative sire, who shortly afterwards returned to his
native land, and was buried at Prague, where his tombstone may yet be
seen. Young Levy, however, contrived to do very well without him. His
real birth was generally known, and rather advantageous to him in a
social point of view. His legacy enabled him to become a partner where
he had been a clerk, and his practice became great amongst the
fashionable classes of society. Indeed he was so useful, so pleasant, so
much a man of the world, that he grew intimate with his clients,--chiefly
young men of rank; was on good terms with both Jew and Christian; and
being neither one nor the other, resembled (to use Sheridan's
incomparable simile) the blank page between the Old and the New
Testament.

Vulgar some might call Mr. Levy from his assurance, but it was not the
vulgarity of a man accustomed to low and coarse society,--rather the
/mauvais ton/ of a person not sure of his own position, but who has
resolved to swagger into the best one he can get. When it is remembered
that he had made his way in the world, and gleaned together an immense
fortune, it is needless to add that he was as sharp as a needle, and as
hard as a flint. No man had had more friends, and no man had stuck by
them more firmly--so long as there was a pound in their pockets!

Something of this character had Randal heard of the baron, and he now
gazed, first at his card, and then at him with--admiration.

"I met a friend of yours at Borrowell's the other day," resumed the
baron,--"young Hazeldean. Careful fellow--quite a man of the world."

As this was the last praise poor Frank deserved, Randal again smiled.

The baron went on: "I hear, Mr. Leslie, that you have much influence over
this same Hazeldean. His affairs are in a sad state. I should be very
happy to be of use to him, as a relation of my friend Egerton's; but he
understands business so well that he despises my advice."

"I am sure you do him injustice."

"Injustice! I honour his caution. I say to every man, 'Don't come to me:
I can get you money on much easier terms than any one else; and what's
the result! You come so often that you ruin yourself; whereas a regular
usurer without conscience frightens you. "Cent percent," you say; "oh, I
must pull in." If you have influence over your friend, tell him to stick
to his bill-brokers, and have nothing to do with Baron Levy."

Here the minister's bell rung, and Randal, looking through the window,
saw Dr. F----- walking to his carriage, which had made way for Baron
Levy's splendid cabriolet,--a cabriolet in the most perfect taste,
baron's coronet on the dark-brown panels, horse black, with such action!
harness just relieved with plating. The servant now entered, and
requested Randal to step in; and addressing the baron, assured him that
he would not be detained a minute.

"Leslie," said the minister, sealing a note, "take this back to Lord
------, and say that I shall be with him in an hour."

"No other message?--he seemed to expect one."

"I dare say he did. Well, my letter is official, my message is not: beg
him to see Mr. ----- before we meet,--he will understand,--all rests upon
that interview."

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