The marehesa regained her house, which was in Curzon Street, and withdrew
to her own room, to readjust her dress, and remove from her countenance
all trace of the tears she had shed.
Half an hour afterwards she was seated in her drawing-room, composed and
calm; nor, seeing her then, could you have guessed that she was capable
of so much emotion and so much weakness. In that stately exterior, in
that quiet attitude, in that elaborate and finished elegance which comes
alike from the arts of the toilet and the conventional repose of rank,
you could see but the woman of the world and the great lady.
A knock at the door was heard, and in a few moments there entered a
visitor, with the easy familiarity of intimate acquaintance,--a young
man, but with none of the bloom of youth. His hair, fine as a woman's,
was thin and scanty, but it fell low over the forehead, and concealed
that noblest of our human features. "A gentleman," says Apuleius, "ought
to wear his whole mind on his forehead." The young visitor would never
have committed so frank an imprudence. His cheek was pale, and in his
step and his movements there was a languor that spoke of fatigued nerves
or delicate health. But the light of the eye and the tone of the voice
were those of a mental temperament controlling the bodily,--vigorous and
energetic. For the rest, his general appearance was distinguished by a
refinement alike intellectual and social. Once seen, you would not
easily forget him; and the reader, no doubt, already recognizes Randal
Leslie. His salutation, as I before said, was that of intimate
familiarity; yet it was given and replied to with that unreserved
openness which denotes the absence of a more tender sentiment.
Seating himself by the marchesa's side, Randal began first to converse on
the fashionable topics and gossip of the day; but it was observable that
while he extracted from her the current anecdote and scandal of the great
world, neither anecdote nor scandal did he communicate in return. Randal
Leslie had already learned the art not to commit himself, nor to have
quoted against him one ill-natured remark upon the eminent. Nothing more
injures the man who would rise beyond the fame of the salons than to be
considered backbiter and gossip; "yet it is always useful," thought
Randal Leslie, "to know the foibles, the small social and private
springs, by which the great are moved. Critical occasions may arise in
which such a knowledge may be power." And hence, perhaps (besides a more
private motive, soon to be perceived), Randal did not consider his time
thrown away in cultivating Madame di Negra's friendship. For, despite
much that was whispered against her, she had succeeded in dispelling the
coldness with which she had at first been received in the London circles.
Her beauty, her grace, and her high birth had raised her into fashion,
and the homage of men of the first station, while it perhaps injured her
reputation as woman, added to her celebrity as fine lady. So much do we
cold English, prudes though we be, forgive to the foreigner what we
avenge on the native.
Sliding at last from these general topics into very well-bred and elegant
personal compliment, and reciting various eulogies, which Lord this and
the Duke of that had passed on the marchesa's charms, Randal laid his
hand on hers, with the license of admitted friendship, and said,
"But since you have deigned to confide in me, since when (happily for me,
and with a generosity of which no coquette could have been capable) you,
in good time, repressed into friendship feelings that might else have
ripened into those you are formed to inspire and disdain to return, you
told me with your charming smile, 'Let no one speak to me of love who
does not offer me his hand, and with it the means to supply tastes that I
fear are terribly extravagant,'--since thus you allowed me to divine your
natural objects, and upon that understanding our intimacy has been
founded, you will pardon me for saying that the admiration you excite
amongst these grands seigneurs I have named only serves to defeat your
own purpose, and scare away admirers less brilliant, but more in earnest.
Most of these gentlemen are unfortunately married; and they who are not
belong to those members of our aristocracy who, in marriage, seek more
than beauty and wit,--namely, connections to strengthen their political
station, or wealth to redeem a mortgage and sustain a title."
"My dear Mr. Leslie," replied the marchesa,--and a certain sadness might
be detected in the tone of the voice and the droop of the eye,--"I have
lived long enough in the real world to appreciate the baseness and the
falsehood of most of those sentiments which take the noblest names.
I see through the hearts of the admirers you parade before me, and know
that not one of them would shelter with his ermine the woman to whom he
talks of his heart. Ah," continued Beatrice, with a softness of which
she was unconscious, but which might have been extremely dangerous to
youth less steeled and self-guarded than was Randal Leslie's,--"ah, I am
less ambitious than you suppose. I have dreamed of a friend, a
companion, a protector, with feelings still fresh, undebased by the low
round of vulgar dissipation and mean pleasures,--of a heart so new, that
it might restore my own to what it was in its happy spring. I have seen
in your country some marriages, the mere contemplation of which has
filled my eyes with delicious tears. I have learned in England to know
the value of home. And with such a heart as I describe, and such a home,
I could forget that I ever knew a less pure ambition."
"This language does not surprise me," said Randal; "yet it does not
harmonize with your former answer to me."
"To you," repeated Beatrice, smiling, and regaining her lighter manner;
"to you,--true. But I never had the vanity to think that your affection
for me could bear the sacrifices it would cost you in marriage; that you,
with your ambition, could bound your dreams of happiness to home. And
then, too," said she, raising her head, and with a certain grave pride in
her air,--"and then, I could not have consented to share my fate with one
whom my poverty would cripple. I could not listen to my heart, if it had
beat for a lover without fortune, for to him I could then have brought
but a burden, and betrayed him into a union with poverty and debt. Now,
it may be different. Now I may have the dowry that befits my birth. And
now I may be free to choose according to my heart as woman, not according
to my necessities, as one poor, harassed, and despairing."
"Ah," said Randal, interested, and drawing still closer towards his fair
companion,--"ah, I congratulate you sincerely; you have cause, then, to
think that you shall be--rich?"
The marchesa paused before she answered, and during that pause Randal
relaxed the web of the scheme which he had been secretly weaving, and
rapidly considered whether, if Beatrice di Negra would indeed be rich,
she might answer to himself as a wife; and in what way, if so, he had
best change his tone from that of friendship into that of love. While
thus reflecting, Beatrice answered,
"Not rich for an Englishwoman; for an Italian, yes. My fortune should be
half a million--"
"Half a million!" cried Randal, and with difficulty he restrained himself
from falling at her feet in adoration. "Of francs!" continued the
marchesa.
"Francs! Ah," said Randal, with a long-drawn breath, and recovering from
his sudden enthusiasm, "about L20,000? eight hundred a year at four per
cent. A very handsome portion, certainly (Genteel poverty!" he murmured
to himself. "What an escape I have had! but I see--I see. This will
smooth all difficulties in the way of my better and earlier project.
I see),--a very handsome portion," he repeated aloud,--"not for a grand
seigneur, indeed, but still for a gentleman of birth and expectations
worthy of your choice, if ambition be not your first object. Ah, while
you spoke with such endearing eloquence of feelings that were fresh, of a
heart that was new, of the happy English home, you might guess that my
thoughts ran to my friend who loves you so devotedly, and who so realizes
your ideal. Proverbially, with us, happy marriages and happy homes are
found not in the gay circles of London fashion, but at the hearths of our
rural nobility, our untitled country gentlemen. And who, amongst all
your adorers, can offer you a lot so really enviable as the one whom, I
see by your blush, you already guess that I refer to?"
"Did I blush?" said the marchesa, with a silvery laugh. "Nay, I think
that your zeal for your friend misled you. But I will own frankly, I
have been touched by his honest ingenuous love,--so evident, yet rather
looked than spoken. I have contrasted the love that honours me with the
suitors that seek to degrade; more I cannot say. For though I grant that
your friend is handsome, high-spirited, and generous, still he is not
what--"
"You mistake, believe me," interrupted Randal. "You shall not finish
your sentence. He is all that you do not yet suppose him; for his
shyness, and his very love, his very respect for your superiority, do not
allow his mind and his nature to appear to advantage. You, it is true,
have a taste for letters and poetry rare among your countrywomen. He
has not at present--few men have. But what Cimon would not be refined by
so fair an Iphigenia? Such frivolities as he now shows belong but to
youth and inexperience of life. Happy the brother who could see his
sister the wife of Frank Hazeldean."
The marchesa leaned her cheek on her hand in silence. To her, marriage
was more than it usually seems to dreaming maiden or to disconsolate
widow. So had the strong desire to escape from the control of her
unprincipled and remorseless brother grown a part of her very soul; so
had whatever was best and highest in her very mixed and complex character
been galled and outraged by her friendless and exposed position, the
equivocal worship rendered to her beauty, the various debasements to
which pecuniary embarrassments had subjected her--not without design on
the part of the count, who though grasping, was not miserly, and who by
precarious and seemingly capricious gifts at one time, and refusals of
all aid at another, had involved her in debt in order to retain his hold
on her; so utterly painful and humiliating to a woman of her pride and
her birth was the station that she held in the world,--that in marriage
she saw liberty, life, honour, self-redemption; and these thoughts, while
they compelled her to co-operate with the schemes by which the count, on
securing to himself a bride, was to bestow on herself a dower, also
disposed her now to receive with favour Randal Leslie's pleadings on
behalf of his friend.
The advocate saw that he had made an impression, and with the marvellous
skill which his knowledge of those natures that engaged his study
bestowed on his intelligence, he continued to improve his cause by such
representations as were likely to be most effective. With what admirable
tact he avoided panegyric of Frank as the mere individual, and drew him
rather as the type, the ideal of what a woman in Beatrice's position
might desire, in the safety, peace, and Honour of a home, in the trust
and constancy and honest confiding love of its partner! He did not paint
an elysium,--he described a haven; he did not glowingly delineate a hero
of romance,--he soberly portrayed that Representative of the Respectable
and the Real which a woman turns to when romance begins to seem to her
but delusion. Verily, if you could have looked into the heart of the
person he addressed, and heard him speak, you would have cried
admiringly, "Knowledge is power; and this man, if as able on a larger
field of action, should play no mean part in the history of his time."
Slowly Beatrice roused herself from the reveries which crept over her as
he spoke,--slowly, and with a deep sigh, and said,
"Well, well, grant all you say! at least before I can listen to so
honourable a love, I must be relieved from the base and sordid pleasure
that weighs on me. I cannot say to the man who wooes me, 'Will you pay
the debts of the daughter of Franzini, and the widow of Di Negra?'"
"Nay, your debts, surely, make so slight a portion of your dowry."
"But the dowry has to be secured;" and here, turning the tables upon her
companion, as the apt proverb expresses it, Madame di Negra extended her
hand to Randal, and said in the most winning accents, "You are, then,
truly and sincerely my friend?"
"Can you doubt it?"
"I prove that I do not, for I ask your assistance."
"Mine? How?"
"Listen; my brother has arrived in London--"
"I see that arrival announced in the papers." "And he comes, empowered
by the consent of the emperor, to ask the hand of a relation and
countrywoman of his,--an alliance that will heal long family dissensions,
and add to his own fortunes those of an heiress. My brother, like
myself, has been extravagant. The dowry which by law he still owes me it
would distress him to pay till this marriage be assured."
"I understand," said Randal. "But how can I aid this marriage?"
"By assisting us to discover the bride. She, with her father, sought
refuge and concealment in England."
"The father had, then, taken part in some political disaffections, and
was proscribed?"
"Exactly; and so well has he concealed himself, that he has baffled all
our efforts to discover his retreat. My brother can obtain him his
pardon in cementing this alliance--"
"Proceed."
"Ah, Randal, Randal, is this the frankness of friendship? You know that
I have before sought to obtain the secret of our relation's retreat,--
sought in vain to obtain it from Mr. Egerton, who assuredly knows it--"
"But who communicates no secrets to living man," said Randal, almost
bitterly; "who, close and compact as iron, is as little malleable to me
as to you."
"Pardon me. I know you so well that I believe you could attain to any
secret you sought earnestly to acquire. Nay, more, I believe that you
know already that secret which I ask you to share with me."
"What on earth makes you think so?"
"When, some weeks ago, you asked me to describe the personal appearance
and manners of the exile, which I did partly from the recollections of my
childhood, partly from the description given to me by others, I could not
but notice your countenance, and remark its change; in spite," said the
marchesa, smiling, and watching Randal while she spoke,--"in spite of
your habitual self-command. And when I pressed you to own that you had
actually seen some one who tallied with that description, your denial did
not deceive me. Still more, when returning recently, of your own accord,
to the subject, you questioned me so shrewdly as to my motives in
seeking the clew to our refugees, and I did not then answer you
satisfactorily, I could detect--"
"Ha, ha," interrupted Randal, with the low soft laugh by which
occasionally he infringed upon Lord Chesterfield's recommendations to
shun a merriment so natural as to be illbred,--"ha, ha, you have the
fault of all observers too minute and refined. But even granting that I
may have seen some Italian exiles (which is likely enough), what could be
more natural than my seeking to compare your description with their
appearance; and granting that I might suspect some one amongst them to be
the man you search for, what more natural also than that I should desire
to know if you meant him harm or good in discovering his 'whereabout'?
For ill," added Randal, with an air of prudery,--"ill would it become me
to betray, even to friendship, the retreat of one who would hide from
persecution; and even if I did so--for honour itself is a weak safeguard
against your fascinations--such indiscretion might be fatal to my future
career."
"How?"
"Do you not say that Egerton knows the secret, yet will not communicate;
and is he a man who would ever forgive in me an imprudence that committed
himself? My dear friend, I will tell you more. When Audley Egerton
first noticed my growing intimacy with you, he said, with his usual
dryness of counsel, 'Randal, I do not ask you to discontinue acquaintance
with Madame di Negra, for an acquaintance with women like her forms the
manners, and refines the intellect; but charming women are dangerous, and
Madame di Negra is--a charming woman.'"
The marchesa's face flushed. Randal resumed: "'Your fair acquaintance'
(I am still quoting Egerton) 'seeks to dis cover the home of a countryman
of hers. She suspects that I know it. She may try to learn it through
you. Accident may possibly give you the information she requires.
Beware how you betray it. By one such weakness I should judge of your
general character. He from whom a woman can extract a secret will never
be fit for public life.' Therefore, my dear marchesa, even supposing I
possess this secret, you would be no true friend of mine to ask me to
reveal what would imperil all my prospects. For as yet," added Randal,
with a gloomy shade on his brow,--"as yet, I do not stand alone and
erect,--I lean, I am dependent."
"There may be a way," replied Madame di Negra, persisting, "to
communicate this intelligence without the possibility of Mr. Egerton's
tracing our discovery to yourself; and, though I will not press you
further, I add this,--You urge me to accept your friend's hand; you seem
interested in the success of his suit, and you plead it with a warmth
that shows how much you regard what you suppose is his happiness; I will
never accept his hand till I can do so without blush for my penury,--till
my dowry is secured; and that can only be by my brother's union with the
exile's daughter. For your friend's sake, therefore, think well how you
can aid me in the first step to that alliance. The young lady once
discovered, and my brother has no fear for the success of his suit."
"And you would marry Frank if the dower was secured?"
"Your arguments in his favour seem irresistible," replied Beatrice,
looking down.
A flash went from Randal's eyes, and he mused a few moments.
Then slowly rising, and drawing on his gloves, he said, "Well, at least
you so far reconcile my honour towards aiding your research, that you now
inform me you mean no ill to the exile."
"Ill!--the restoration to fortune, honours, his native land!"
"And you so far enlist my heart on your side, that you inspire me with
the hope to contribute to the happiness of two friends whom I dearly
love. I will, therefore, diligently try to ascertain if, among the
refugees I have met with, lurk those whom you seek; and if so, I will
thoughtfully consider how to give you the clew. Meanwhile, not one
incautious word to Egerton."
"Trust me,--I am a woman of the world."
Randal now had gained the door. He paused, and renewed carelessly,--
"This young lady must be heiress to great wealth, to induce a man of your
brother's rank to take so much pains to discover her."
"Her wealth will be vast," replied the marchesa; "and if anything from
wealth or influence in a foreign State could be permitted to prove my
brother's gratitude--"
"Ah, fie!" interrupted Randal; and, approaching Madame di Negra, he
lifted her hand to his lips, and said gallantly, "This is reward enough
to your preux chevalier."
With those words he took his leave.