Orvieto was a true villa palace (which only Italians understand how
to build), and the grounds were on a scale of extent that suited the
mansion. Ornamental terraces and gardens on every side, with tasteful
alleys of trellised vines to give noon-day shade, and farther off again
a dense pine forest, traversed by long alleys of grass, which even in
the heat of summer were cool and shaded. These narrow roads, barely
wide enough for two horsemen abreast, crossed and recrossed in the
dark forest, ever leading between walls of the same dusky foliage, with
scanty glimpses of a blue sky through the arched branches overhead.
If Guglia rode there for hours long with Gerald; if they strayed--often
silently--not even a foot-fall heard on the smooth turf, you perhaps,
know why; and if you do not, how am I, unskilled in such descriptions,
to make you wiser? Well, it was even as you suspect: the petted child of
fortune, the lovely niece of the great Cardinal, the beautiful Guglia,
whose hand was the greatest prize of Rome, had conceived such an
interest in Gerald, his fortunes and his fate, that she could not leave
Orvieto.
In vain came pressing invitations from Albano and Terni, where she had
promised to pass part of her autumn. In vain the lively descriptions of
friends full of all the delights of Castellamare or Sorrento: the story
of festivities and pleasures seemed poor and even vulgar with the life
she led. Talk of illusions as you will, that of being in love is the
only one that moulds the nature or elevates the heart! Out of its
promptings come the heroism of the least venturesome or the poetry of
the least romantic! Insensibly stealing into the affections of another,
we have to descend into our own hearts for the secrets that win success;
and how resolutely we combat all that is mean or unworthy in our nature,
simply that we may offer a more pure sacrifice on the altar we kneel to!
And there and thus she lived, the flattered beauty--the young girl, to
whom an atmosphere of homage and admiration seemed indispensable--whose
presence was courted in the society of the great world, and whose very
caprices had grown to become fashions--a sort of strange, half-real
existence, each day so like another that time had no measure how it
passed.
The library of the villa supplied them with ample material to study the
history of the Stuarts; and in these pursuits they passed the mornings,
carefully noting down the strange eventualities which determined their
fate, and canvassing together in talk the traits which so often had
involved them in misfortune. Gerald, now restored to full health, was
a perfect type of the illustrious race he had sprung from: and not
only was the resemblance in face and figure, but all the mannerisms
of Charles Edward were reproduced in the son. The same easy, gentle,
yielding disposition, dashed by impulses of the wildest daring, and
darkened occasionally by moods of obstinacy; miserable under the thought
of having offended, and almost more wretched when the notion of being
forgiven imparted a sense of his own inferiority; he was one of those
men whose minds are so many-sided that they seem to have no fixed
character. Even now, though awakened to the thought of the great destiny
that might one day befall him--assured as he felt of his birth and
lineage--there were intervals in which no sense of ambition stirred him,
when he would willingly accept the humblest lot in life should it only
promise peace and tranquillity.
Strangely enough it was by these vacillations and changes of temperament
that Guglia had attached herself so decisively to his fortunes. The very
want which she supplied to his nature made the tie between them. The
theory in her own heart was, that when called on for effort, whenever
the occasion should demand the great personal qualities of courage and
daring, Gerald would be pre-eminently distinguished, and show himself to
the world a true Stuart.
While thus they lived a life of happiness, the Père Massoni was actively
engaged in maturing plans for the future. For a considerable time back
he had been watching the condition of Ireland with an intense feeling
of anxiety. So far from the resistance to England having assumed the
character of a struggle in favour of Catholicism, it had grown more and
more to resemble the great convulsion in France which promised to ingulf
all religions and all creeds. Though in a measure prepared for this
in the beginning of the conflict, Massoni steadfastly trusted that the
influence of the priests would as certainly bring the people back to the
standards of the Church, and that eventually the contest would be purely
between Rome and the Reformation. His last news from Ireland grievously
damped the ardour of such hopes. The Presbyterians of the North--men
called enemies of the ‘Church ‘--were now the most trusted leaders of
the movement; and how was he to expect that such men as these would
accept a Stuart for their king?
For days, and even weeks did the crafty Père ponder over this difficult
problem, and try to solve it in ways the most opposite. Why might not
these Northerns, who must always be a mere minority, be employed at the
outset of the struggle, and then, as the rebellion declared itself, be
abandoned and thrown over? Why not make them the forlorn hope of the
campaign, and so get rid of them entirely? Why should not the Chevalier
boldly try his personal influence among them, promise future rewards and
favours, ay, even more still? Why might he not adroitly have it hinted
that he was, at heart, less a Romanist than was generally believed:
that French opinions had taken a deep root in his nature, and the early
teachings of Mirabeau born their true fruit? There was much in Gerald’s
training and habit of mind which would favour this supposition, could he
but be induced to play the game as he was directed. There was among
the Stuart papers in Cardinal York’s keeping a curious memorandum of
a project once entertained by the Pretender with respect to Charles
Edward. It was a scheme to marry him to a natural daughter of Sir Robert
Walpole, and thus conciliate the favour and even the support of that
Minister--the strongest friend and ally of the Hanoverian cause. The
Jesuit father had seen and read this remarkable paper, and deemed it
a conception of the finest and most adroit diplomacy. It had even
stimulated his own ardour to rival it in acuteness; to impose Gerald
upon the Presbyterian party, as one covertly cherishing views similar
to their own; to make them, a minority as they were, imagine that the
future destinies of the country were in their keeping; to urge them on,
in fact, to the van of the battle, that so they might stand between two
fires, was his great conception, the only difficulty to which was how to
prepare the young Chevalier for the part he was to play, and reconcile
him to its duplicity!
To this end he addressed himself zealously and vigorously, feeding
Gerald’s mind with ideas of the grandeur of his house, the princely
inheritance that they had possessed, and their high rank in Europe. All
that could contribute to stimulate the youth’s ardour, and gratify
his pride of birth, was studiously provided. Day by day he advanced
stealthily upon the road, gradually enhancing Gerald’s own standard to
himself, and giving him, by a sort of fictitious occupation, an amount
of importance in his own eyes. Massoni maintained a wide correspondence
throughout Europe; there was not a petty court where he had not some
trusted agent. To impart to this correspondence a peculiar tone and
colouring was easy enough. At a signal from him the hint was sure to
be adopted; and now as letters poured in from Spain, and Portugal, and
Naples, and Vienna, they all bore upon the one theme, and seemed filled
with but one thought--that of the young Stuart and his fortunes. All
these were duly forwarded by Massoni to Gerald by special couriers, who
arrived with a haste and speed that seemed to imply the last importance.
With an ingenuity all his own, the Père invested this correspondence
with all the characteristics of a vast political machinery, and by
calling upon Gerald’s personal intervention, he elevated the young man
to imagine himself the centre of a great enterprise.
Well aided and seconded as he was by Guglia Ridolfi, to whom also this
labour was a delightful occupation, the day was often too short for the
amount of business before them; and instead of the long rides in the
pine forest, or strolling rambles through the garden, a brisk gallop
before dinner, taken with all the zest of a holiday, was often the only
recreation they permitted themselves. There was a fascination in this
existence that made all their previous life, happy as it had been, seem
tame and worthless in comparison. If real power have an irresistible
charm for those who have once enjoyed its prerogatives, even the
semblance and panoply of it have a marvellous fascination.
That _égoïsme-à-deux_, as a witty French writer has called love, was
also heightened in its attraction by the notion of an influence and
sway wielded in concert. As one of the invariable results of the
great passion is to elevate people to themselves, so did this seeming
importance they thus acquired minister to their love for each other. In
the air-built castles of their mind one was a royal palace, surrounded
with all the pomp and splendour of majesty; who shall say that here was
not a theme for a ‘thousand-and-one nights,’ of imagination?
Must we make the ungraceful confession that Gerald was not very much in
love! though he felt that the life he was leading was a very delightful
one. Guglia possessed great--the very greatest--attractions. She was
very beautiful; her figure the perfection of grace and symmetry; her
carriage, voice and air all that the most fastidious could wish for.
She was eminently gifted in many ways, and with an apprehension of
astonishing quickness; and yet, somehow, though he liked and admired
her, was always happy in her society, and charmed by her companionship,
she never made the subject of his solitary musings as he strolled
by himself; she was not the theme of the sonnets that fell half
unconsciously from his lips as he rambled alone in the pine wood. Was
the want then in _her_ to inspire a deeper passion, or had the holiest
spot in _his_ heart been already occupied, or was it that some ideal
conception had made all reality unequal and inferior?
We smile at the simplicity of those poor savages, who having carved
out their own deity, fashioned, and shaped, and clothed, then fall down
before their own handiwork in an abject devotion and worship. We cannot
reconcile to ourselves the mental process by which this self-deception
is practised, and yet it is happening in another form, and every day
too, under our own eyes. The most violent passions are very often
the result of a certain suggestiveness in an object much admired; the
qualities which awaken in ourselves nobler sentiments, higher ambitions,
and more delightful dreams of a future soon attach us to the passion,
and unconsciously we create an image of which the living type is but
a skeleton. Perhaps it was the towering ambition of Guglia’s mind that
impaired, to a great degree, the womanly tenderness of her nature, and
not impossibly too he felt, as men of uncertain purpose often feel, a
certain pique at the more determined and resolute character of a
woman’s mind. Again and again did he wish for some little trait of mere
affection, something that should betoken, if not an indifference, a
passing forgetfulness of the great world and all its splendours. But no;
all her thoughts soared upward to the high station she had set her heart
on. Of what they should be one day was the great dream of her life--for
they were already betrothed by the Cardinal’s consent--and of the
splendid path that lay before them.
The better to carry out his own views Massoni had always kept up a
special correspondence with Guglia, in which he expressed his hopes of
success far more warmly than he had ever done to Gerald. Her temperament
was also more sanguine and impassioned, she met difficulties in a more
daring spirit, and could more easily persuade herself to whatever she
ardently desired. The Père had only pointed out to her some of the
obstacles to success, and even these he had accompanied by such
explanations as to how they might be met and combated that they seemed
less formidable; and the great question between them was rather when
than how the grand enterprise was to be begun.
‘Though I am told,’ wrote he, ‘that the discontent with the House of
Hanover grows daily more suspicious in England, and many of its once
staunch adherents regret the policy which bound them to these usurpers,
yet it is essentially to Ireland we must look for, at least, the opening
of our enterprise; there is not a mere murmur of dissatisfaction--it is
the deep thunder-roll of rebellion. Two delegates from that country are
now with me--men of note and station--who, having learnt for the first
time that a Prince of the Stuart family yet survives, are most eager to
pay their homage to his Royal Highness. Of course, this, if done at all,
must be with such secrecy as shall prevent it reaching Florence and
the ears of Sir Horace Mann; and, at the same time, not altogether
so unceremoniously as to deprive the interview of its character of
audience. It is to the “pregiatissima Contessa Guglia” that I leave the
charge of this negotiation, and the responsibility of saying “yes” or
“no” to this request.
‘Of the delegates, one is a baronet, by name Sir Capel Crosbie, a man
of old family and good fortune. The other is a Mr. Simon Purcell, who
formerly served in the English army, and was wounded in some action with
the French in Canada. They have not, either of them, much affection for
England--a very pardonable disloyalty when you hear their story. The
imminent question, however, now is--can you see them; which means--can
they have this audience?
‘You will all the better understand any caution I employ on this
occasion, when I tell you that, on the only instance of a similar kind
having occurred, I had great reason to deplore my activity in promoting
it. It was at the presentation of the Bishop of Clare to his Royal
Highness, when the Prince took the opportunity of declaring the strong
conviction he entertained of the security of the Hanoverian succession;
and, worse again, how ineffectual all priestly intrigues must ever
prove, when the contest lay between armies. I have no need to say what
injury such indiscretion produces, nor how essential it is that it may
not be repeated. If you assent to my request, I beg to leave to your
own judgment the fitting time, and, what is still more important,
the precise character of the reception--that is, as to how far its
significance as an audience should be blended with the more graceful
familiarity of a friendly meeting. The distinguished Contessa has on
such themes no need of counsel from the humblest of her servants, and
most devoted follower,
‘Paul Massoni.’
What reply she returned to his note may easily be gathered from the
following few words which passed between Gerald and herself a few
mornings afterward.
They were seated in the library at their daily task, surrounded by
letters, maps, and books, when Guglia said hastily, ‘Oh, here is a note
from the Père Massoni to be replied to. He writes to ask when it may
be the pleasure of his Royal Highness to receive the visit of two
distinguished gentlemen from Ireland, who ardently entreat the honour of
kissing his Royal Highness’s hand, and of carrying back with them such
assurances as he might vouchsafe to utter of his feeling for those who
have never ceased to deem themselves his subjects.’
‘_Che seccatura!_’ burst he out, as he rose impatiently from the table
and paced the room; ‘if there be a mockery which I cannot endure, it is
one of these audiences. I can sit here and fool myself all day long by
poring over records of a has-been, or even tracing out the limits of
what my ancestors possessed; but to play Prince at a mock levée--no, no,
Guglia, you must not ask me this.’
There were days when this humour was strong on him, and she said no
more.