Book: My Novel, Volume 9.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> My Novel, Volume 9.




"Aha," thought the count, "it comes, as I anticipated from the first,--
comes to the bribe." He passed the wine to Randal, filling his own
glass, and draining it carelessly; "/Sur mon ame, mon cher/," said the
count, "luxury is ever pleasanter than necessity; and I am resolved at
least to give Ambition a trial; je vais me refugier dans le sein du
bonheur domestique,--a married life and a settled home. /Peste!/ If
it were not for ambition, one would die of /ennui/. /A propos/, my dear
sir, I have to thank you for promising my sister your aid in finding a
near and dear kinsman of mine, who has taken refuge in your country, and
hides himself even from me."

"I should be most happy to assist in your search. As yet, however, I
have only to regret that all my good wishes are fruitless. I should have
thought, however, that a man of such rank had been easily found, even
through the medium of your own ambassador."

"Our own ambassador is no very warm friend of mine; and the rank would be
no clew, for it is clear that my kinsman has never assumed it since he
quitted his country."

"He quitted it, I understand, not exactly from choice," said Randal,
smiling. "Pardon my freedom and curiosity, but will you explain to me
a little more than I learn from English rumour (which never accurately
reports upon foreign matters still more notorious), how a person who had
so much to lose, and so little to win, by revolution, could put himself
into the same crazy boat with a crew of hair-brained adventurers and
visionary professors."

"Professors!" repeated the count; "I think you have hit on the very
answer to your question; not but what men of high birth were as mad as
the /canaille/. I am the more willing to gratify your curiosity, since
it will perhaps serve to guide your kind search in my favour. You must
know, then, that my kinsman was not born the heir to the rank he
obtained. He was but a distant relation to the head of the House which
he afterwards represented. Brought up in an Italian university, he was
distinguished for his learning and his eccentricities. There too, I
suppose, brooding over old wives' tales about freedom, and so forth, he
contracted his carbonaro, chimerical notions for the independence of
Italy. Suddenly, by three deaths, he was elevated, while yet young, to
a station and honours which might have satisfied any man in his senses.
/Que diable!/ what could the independence of Italy do for him? He and I
were cousins; we had played together as boys; but our lives had been
separated till his succession to rank brought us necessarily together.
We became exceedingly intimate. And you may judge how I loved him," said
the count, averting his eyes slightly from Randal's quiet, watchful gaze,
"when I add, that I forgave him for enjoying a heritage that, but for
him, had been mine."

"Ah, you were next heir?"

"And it is a hard trial to be very near a great fortune, and yet just to
miss it."

"True," cried Randal, almost impetuously. The count now raised his eyes,
and again the two men looked into each other's souls.

"Harder still, perhaps," resumed the count, after a short pause,--"harder
still might it have been to some men to forgive the rival as well as the
heir."

"Rival! how?"

"A lady, who had been destined by her parents to myself, though we had
never, I own, been formally betrothed, became the wife of my kinsman."

"Did he know of your pretensions?"

"I do him the justice to say he did not. He saw and fell in love with
the young lady I speak of. Her parents were dazzled. Her father sent
for me. He apologized, he explained; he set before me, mildly enough,
certain youthful imprudences or errors of my own, as an excuse for his
change of mind; and he asked me not only to resign all hope of his
daughter, but to conceal from her new suitor that I had ever ventured to
hope."

"And you consented?"

"I consented."

"That was generous. You must indeed have been much attached to your
kinsman. As a lover, I cannot comprehend it; perhaps, my dear count, you
may enable me to understand it better--as a man of the world."

"Well," said the count, with his most roue air, "I suppose we are both
men of the world?"

"Both! certainly," replied Randal, just in the tone which Peachum might
have used in courting the confidence of Lockit.

"As a man of the world, then, I own," said the count, playing with the
rings on his fingers, "that if I could not marry the lady myself (and
that seemed to me clear), it was very natural that I should wish to see
her married to my wealthy kinsman."

"Very natural; it might bring your wealthy kinsman and yourself still
closer together."

"This is really a very clever fellow!" thought the count, but he made no
direct reply.

"/Enfin/, to cut short a long story, my cousin afterwards got entangled
in attempts, the failure of which is historically known. His projects
were detected, himself denounced. He fled, and the emperor, in
sequestrating his estates, was pleased, with rare and singular clemency,
to permit me, as his nearest kinsman, to enjoy the revenues of half those
estates during the royal pleasure; nor was the other half formally
confiscated. It was no doubt his Majesty's desire not to extinguish a
great Italian name; and if my cousin and his child died in exile, why,
of that name, I, a loyal subject of Austria,--I, Franzini, Count di
Peschiera, would become the representative. Such, in a similar case,
has been sometimes the Russian policy towards Polish insurgents."

"I comprehend perfectly; and I can also conceive that you, in profiting
so largely, though so justly, by the fall of your kinsman, may have been
exposed to much unpopularity, even to painful suspicion."

"/Entre nous, mon cher/, I care not a stiver for popularity; and as to
suspicion, who is he that can escape from the calumny of the envious?
But, unquestionably, it would be most desirable to unite the divided
members of our house; and this union I can now effect by the consent of
the emperor to my marriage with my kinsman's daughter. You see,
therefore, why I have so great an interest in this research?"

"By the marriage articles you could no doubt secure the retention of the
half you hold; and if you survive your kinsman, you would enjoy the
whole. A most desirable marriage; and, if made, I suppose that would
suffice to obtain your cousin's amnesty and grace?"

"You say it."

"But even without such marriage, since the emperor's clemency has been
extended to so many of the proscribed, it is perhaps probable that your
cousin might be restored?"

"It once seemed to me possible," said the count, reluctantly; "but since
I have been in England, I think not. The recent revolution in France,
the democratic spirit rising in Europe, tend to throw back the cause of
a proscribed rebel. England swarms with revolutionists; my cousin's
residence in this country is in itself suspicious. The suspicion is
increased by his strange seclusion. There are many Italians here who
would aver that they had met with him, and that he was still engaged in
revolutionary projects."

"Aver--untruly?"

"/Ma foi/, it comes to the same thing; 'les absents ont toujours tort.'
I speak to a man of the world. No; without some such guarantee for his
faith as his daughter's marriage with myself would give, his recall is
improbable. By the heaven above us, it shall be impossible!" The count
rose as he said this,--rose as if the mask of simulation had fairly
fallen from the visage of crime; rose tall and towering, a very image of
masculine power and strength, beside the slight, bended form and sickly
face of the intellectual schemer. And had you seen them thus confronted
and contrasted, you would have felt that if ever the time should come
when the interest of the one would compel him openly to denounce or
boldly to expose the other, the odds were that the brilliant and
audacious reprobate would master the weaker nerve but superior wit of
the furtive traitor. Randal was startled; but rising also, he said
carelessly,

"What if this guarantee can no longer be given; what if, in despair of
return, and in resignation to his altered fortunes, your cousin has
already married his daughter to some English suitor?"

"Ah, that would indeed be, next to my own marriage with her, the most
fortunate thing that could happen to myself."

"How? I don't understand!"

"Why, if my cousin has so abjured his birthright, and forsworn his rank;
if this heritage, which is so dangerous from its grandeur, pass, in case
of his pardon, to some obscure Englishman,--a foreigner, a native of a
country that has no ties with ours, a country that is the very refuge of
levellers and Carbonari--/mort de ma vie!/ do you think that such would
not annihilate all chance of my cousin's restoration, and be an excuse
even in the eyes of Italy for formally conferring the sequestrated
estates on an Italian? No; unless, indeed, the girl were to marry an
Englishman of such name and birth and connection as would in themselves
be a guarantee (and how in poverty is this likely?) I should go back to
Vienna with a light heart, if I could say, 'My kinswoman is an
Englishman's wife; shall her children be the heirs to a house so renowned
for its lineage, and so formidable for its wealth?' /Parbleu!/ if my
cousin were but an adventurer, or merely a professor, he had been
pardoned long ago. The great enjoy the honour not to be pardoned
easily."

Randal fell into deep but brief thought. The count observed him, not
face to face, but by the reflection of an opposite mirror. "This man
knows something; this man is deliberating; this man can help me," thought
the count.

But Randal said nothing to confirm these hypotheses. Recovering from his
abstraction, he expressed courteously his satisfaction at the count's
prospects, either way. "And since, after all," he added, "you mean so
well to your cousin, it occurs to me that you might discover him by a
very simple English process."

"How?"

"Advertise that, if he will come to some place appointed, he will hear of
something to his advantage."

The count shook his head. "He would suspect me, and not come."

"But he was intimate with you. He joined an insurrection; you were more
prudent. You did not injure him, though you may have benefited yourself.
Why should he shun you?"

"The conspirators forgive none who do not conspire; besides, to speak
frankly, he thought I injured him."

"Could you not conciliate him through his wife--whom you resigned to
him?"

"She is dead,--died before he left the country."

"Oh, that is unlucky! Still I think an advertisement might do good.
Allow me to reflect on that subject. Shall we now join Madame la
Marquise?"

On re-entering the drawing-room, the gentlemen found Beatrice in full
dress, seated by the fire, and reading so intently that she did not
remark them enter.

"What so interests you, /ma seuur/?--the last novel by Balzac, no doubt?"

Beatrice started, and, looking up, showed eyes that were full of tears.
"Oh, no! no picture of miserable, vicious, Parisian life. This is
beautiful; there is soul here."

Randal took up the book which the marchesa laid down; it was the same
which had charmed the circle at Hazeldean, charmed the innocent and
fresh-hearted, charmed now the wearied and tempted votaress of the world.

"Hum," murmured Randal; "the parson was right. This is power,--a sort of
a power."

"How I should like to know the author! Who can he be? Can you guess?"

"Not I. Some old pedant in spectacles."

"I think not, I am sure not. Here beats a heart I have ever sighed to
find, and never found."

"Oh, /la naive enfant!/" cried the count; "comme son imagination s'egare
en reves enchantes. And to think that while you talk like an Arcadian,
you are dressed like a princess."

"Ah, I forgot--the Austrian ambassador's. I shall not go to-night. This
book unfits me for the artificial world."

"Just as you will, my sister. I shall go. I dislike the man, and he me;
but ceremonies before men!"

"You are going to the Austrian Embassy?" said Randal. "I, too, shall be
there. We shall meet." And he took his leave.

"I like your young friend prodigiously," said the count, yawning. "I am
sure that he knows of the lost birds, and will stand to them like a
pointer, if I can but make it his interest to do so. We shall see."




CHAPTER IV.

Randal arrived at the ambassador's before the count, and contrived to mix
with the young noblemen attached to the embassy, and to whom he was
known. Standing among these was a young Austrian, on his travels, of
very high birth, and with an air of noble grace that suited the ideal of
the old German chivalry. Randal was presented to him, and, after some
talk on general topics, observed, "By the way, Prince, there is now in
London a countryman of yours, with whom you are, doubtless, familiarly
acquainted,--the Count di Peschiera."

"He is no countryman of mine. He is an Italian. I know him but by sight
and by name," said the prince, stiffly.

"He is of very ancient birth, I believe."

"Unquestionably. His ancestors were gentlemen."

"And very rich."

"Indeed! I have understood the contrary. He enjoys, it is true, a large
revenue."

A young attache, less discreet than the prince; here observed, "Oh,
Peschiera! poor fellow, he is too fond of play to be rich."

"And there is some chance that the kinsman whose revenue he holds may
obtain his pardon, and re-enter into possession of his fortunes--so I
hear, at least," said Randal, artfully.

"I shall be glad if it be true," said the prince, with decision; "and I
speak the common sentiment at Vienna. That kinsman had a noble spirit,
and was, I believe, equally duped and betrayed. Pardon me, sir; but we
Austrians are not so bad as we are painted. Have you ever met in England
the kinsman you speak of?"

"Never, though he is supposed to reside here; and the count tells me that
he has a daughter."

"The count--ha! I heard something of a scheme,--a wager of that--that
count's. A daughter! Poor girl! I hope she will escape his pursuit;
for, no doubt, he pursues her."

"Possibly she may already have married an Englishman."

"I trust not," said the prince, seriously; "that might at present be a
serious obstacle to her father's return."

"You think so?"

"There can be no doubt of it," interposed the attache, with a grand and
positive air; "unless, indeed, the Englishman were of a rank equal to her
own."

Here there was a slight, well-bred murmur and buzz at the door, for the
Count di Peschiera himself was announced; and as he entered, his presence
was so striking, and his beauty so dazzling, that whatever there might be
to the prejudice of his character, it seemed instantly effaced or
forgotten in that irresistible admiration which it is the prerogative of
personal attributes alone to create.

The prince, with a slight curve of his lip at the groups that collected
round the count, turned to Randal, and said, "Can you tell me if a
distinguished countryman of yours is in England, Lord L'Estrange?"

"No, Prince, he is not. You know him?"

"Well."

"He is acquainted with the count's kinsman; and perhaps from him you have
learned to think so highly of that kinsman?"

The prince bowed, and answered as he moved away, "When one man of high
honour vouches for another, he commands the belief of all."

"Certainly," soliloquized Randal, "I must not be precipitate. I was very
near falling into a terrible trap. If I were to marry the girl, and
only, by so doing, settle away her inheritance on Peschiera!--how hard it
is to be sufficiently cautious in this world!"

While thus meditating, a member of parliament tapped him on the shoulder.

"Melancholy, Leslie! I lay a wager I guess your thoughts."

"Guess," answered Randal.

"You were thinking of the place you are so soon to lose."

"Soon to lose!"

"Why, if ministers go out, you could hardly keep it, I suppose."

This ominous and horrid member of parliament, Squire Hazeldean's
favourite county member, Sir John, was one of those legislators
especially odious to officials,--an independent "large-acred" member, who
would no more take office himself than he would cut down the oaks in his
park, and who had no bowels of human feeling for those who had opposite
tastes and less magnificent means.

"Hem!" said Randal, rather surlily. "In the first place, Sir John,
ministers are not going out."

"Oh, yes, they will go. You know I vote with them generally, and would
willingly keep them in; but they are men of honour and spirit; and if
they can't carry their measures, they must resign; otherwise, by Jove, I
would turn round and vote them out myself!"

"I have no doubt you would, Sir John; you are quite capable of it; that
rests with you and your constituents. But even if ministers did go out,
I am but a poor subaltern in a public office,--I am no minister. Why
should I go out too?

"Why? Hang it, Leslie, you are laughing at me. A young fellow like you
could never be mean enough to stay in, under the very men who drove out
your friend Egerton?"

"It is not usual for those in the public offices to retire with every
change of government."

"Certainly not; but always those who are the relations of a retiring
minister; always those who have been regarded as politicians, and who
mean to enter parliament, as of course you will do at the next election.
But you know that as well as I do,--you who are so decided a politician,
the writer of that admirable pamphlet! I should not like to tell my
friend Hazeldean, who has a sincere interest in you, that you ever
doubted on a question of honour as plain as your A, B, C."

"Indeed, Sir John," said Randal, recovering his suavity, while he inly
breathed a dire anathema on his county member, "I am so new to these
things that what you say never struck me before. No doubt you must be
right; at all events I cannot have a better guide and adviser than Mr.
Egerton himself."

SIR JOHN.--"No, certainly; perfect gentleman, Egerton! I wish we could
make it up with him and Hazeldean."

RANDAL (sighing).--"Ah, I wish we could!"

SIR JOHN.--"And some chance of it now; for the time is coming when all
true men of the old school must stick together."

RANDAL.--"Wisely, admirably said, my dear Sir John. But, pardon me, I
must pay my respects to the ambassador." Randal escaped, and passing on,
saw the ambassador himself in the next room, conferring in a corner with
Audley Egerton. The ambassador seemed very grave, Egerton calm and
impenetrable, as usual. Presently the count passed by, and the
ambassador bowed to him very stiffly.

As Randal, some time later, was searching for his cloak below, Audley
Egerton unexpectedly joined him.

"Ah, Leslie," said the minister, with more kindness than usual, "if you
don't think the night air too cold for you, let us walk home together.
I have sent away the carriage."

This condescension in his patron was so singular, that it quite startled
Randal, and gave him a presentiment of some evil. When they were in the
street, Egerton, after a pause, began,

"My dear Mr. Leslie, it was my hope and belief that I had provided for
you at least a competence; and that I might open to you, later, a career
yet more brilliant. Hush! I don't doubt your gratitude; let me proceed.
There is a possible chance, after certain decisions that the Government
have come to, that we may be beaten in the House of Commons, and of
course resign. I tell you this beforehand, for I wish you to have time
to consider what, in that case, would be your best course. My power of
serving you may then probably be over. It would, no doubt (seeing our
close connection, and my views with regard to your future being so well
known),--no doubt, be expected that you should give up the place you
hold, and follow my fortunes for good or ill. But as I have no personal
enemies with the opposite party, and as I have sufficient position in the
world to uphold and sanction your choice, whatever it may be, if you
think it more prudent to retain your place, tell me so openly, and I
think I can contrive that you may do it without loss of character and
credit. In that case, confine your ambition merely to rising gradually
in your office, without mixing in politics. If, on the other hand, you
should prefer to take your chance of my return to office, and so resign
your present place; and, furthermore, should commit yourself to a policy
that may then be not only in opposition but unpopular, I will do my best
to introduce you into parliamentary life. I cannot say that I advise the
latter."

Randal felt as a man feels after a severe fall,--he was literally
stunned. At length he faltered out,--

"Can you think, sir, that I should ever desert your fortunes, your party,
your cause?"

"My dear Leslie," replied the minister, "you are too young to have
committed yourself to any men or to any party, except, indeed, in that
unlucky pamphlet. This must not be an affair of sentiment, but of sense
and reflection. Let us say no more on the point now; but by considering
the pros and the cons, you can better judge what to do, should the time
for option suddenly arrive."

"But I hope that time may not come."

"I hope so too, and most sincerely," said the minister, with deliberate
and genuine emphasis.

"What could be so bad for the country?" ejaculated Pandal. "It does not
seem to me possible, in the nature of things, that you and your party
should ever go out!"

"And when we are once out, there will be plenty of wiseacres to say it is
out of the nature of things that we should ever come in again. Here we
are at the door."




CHAPTER V.

Randal passed a sleepless night; but, indeed, he was one of those persons
who neither need, nor are accustomed to, much sleep. However, towards
morning, when dreams are said to be prophetic, he fell into a most
delightful slumber, a slumber peopled by visions fitted to lure on,
through labyrinths of law, predestined chancellors, or wreck upon the
rocks of glory the inebriate souls of youthful ensigns; dreams from which
Rood Hall emerged crowned with the towers of Belvoir or Raby, and looking
over subject lands and manors wrested from the nefarious usurpation of
Thornhills and Hazeldeans; dreams in which Audley Egerton's gold and
power, rooms in Downing Street, and saloons in Grosvenor Square, had
passed away to the smiling dreamer, as the empire of Chaldaea passed to
Darius the Median. Why visions so belying the gloomy and anxious
thoughts that preceded them should visit the pillow of Randal Leslie,
surpasses my philosophy to conjecture. He yielded, however, passively to
their spell, and was startled to hear the clock strike eleven as he
descended the stairs to breakfast. He was vexed at the lateness of the
hour, for he had meant to have taken advantage of the unwonted softness
of Egerton, and drawn therefrom some promises or proffers to cheer the
prospects which the minister had so chillingly expanded before him the
preceding night; and it was only at breakfast that he usually found the
opportunity of private conference with his busy patron. But Audley
Egerton would be sure to have sallied forth; and so he had, only Randal
was surprised to hear that he had gone out in his carriage, instead of on
foot, as was his habit. Randal soon despatched his solitary meal, and
with a new and sudden affection for his office, thitherwards bent his
way. As he passed through Piccadilly, he heard behind a voice that had
lately become familiar to him, and turning round, saw Baron Levy walking
side by side, though not arm-in-arm, with a gentleman almost as smart as
himself, but with a jauntier step and a brisker air,--a step that, like
Diomed's, as described by Shakspeare,--

"Rises on the toe; that spirit of his
In aspiration lifts him from the earth."

Indeed, one may judge of the spirits and disposition of a man by his
ordinary gait and mien in walking. He who habitually pursues abstract
thought looks down on the ground. He who is accustomed to sudden
impulses, or is trying to seize upon some necessary recollection, looks
up with a kind of jerk. He who is a steady, cautious, merely practical
man, walks on deliberately, his eyes straight before him; and, even in
his most musing moods, observes things around sufficiently to avoid a
porter's knot or a butcher's tray. But the man with strong ganglions--of
pushing, lively temperament, who, though practical, is yet speculative;
the man who is emulous and active, and ever trying to rise in life;
sanguine, alert, bold--walks with a spring, looks rather above the heads
of his fellow-passengers, but with a quick, easy turn of his own, which
is lightly set on his shoulders; his mouth is a little open, his eye is
bright, rather restless, but penetrative, his port has something of
defiance, his form is erect, but without stiffness. Such was the
appearance of the baron's companion. And as Randal turned round at
Levy's voice, the baron said to his companion, "A young man in the first
circles--you should book him for your fair lady's parties. How d' ye do,
Mr. Leslie? Let me introduce you to Mr. Richard Avenel." Then, as he
hooked his arm into Randal's, he whispered, "Man of first-rate talent,
monstrous rich, has two or three parliamentary seats in his pocket, wife
gives parties,--her foible."

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