It was already past noon when Grounsell reached Florence. He was delayed
at the gate by the authorities examining a peasant's cart in front of
him,--a process which appeared to take a most unusual degree of care
and scrutiny,--and thus gave the doctor another occasion for inveighing
against the “stupid ignorance of foreigners, who throw every possible
impediment in the way of traffic and intercourse.”
“What have they discovered now?” cried he, testily, as in a crowd of
vehicles, of all sorts and sizes, he was jammed up like a coal-vessel in
the river. “Is the peasant a revolutionary general in disguise? or has
he got Bibles or British cutlery under the straw of his baroccino?”
“No, Eccellenza.” (Every one in a passion in Italy is styled Eccellenza,
as an “anodyne.”) “It's a sick man, and they don't know what to do with
him.”
“Is there a duty on ague or nervous fever?” asked he, angrily.
“They suspect he's dead, Eccellenza; and if so, there's no use in
bringing him into the city, to bring him out again by and by.”
“And don't they know if a man be dead or alive?”
“Not when he's a foreigner, Illustrissimo; and such is the case here.”
“Ah, very true!” said Grounsell, dryly, as if acquiescing in the truth
of the remark. “Let me have a look at him; perhaps I can assist their
judgment.” And with this he descended, and made his way through the
crowd, who, in all the eagerness of curiosity, thronged around the cart
A peasant's great-coat was drawn over the figure and even the face
of the sick man, as he lay at full length on the mat flooring of the
baroccino; and on his chest some pious hand had deposited a rosary and a
wooden crucifix.
Grounsell hastily drew back the covering, and then clutching an arm of
those at either side of him, he uttered a faint cry, for the pale and
deathlike features before him were those of George Onslow. The instincts
of the doctor, however, soon rose above every other feeling, and his
hand seized the wrist and felt for the pulse. Its beatings were slow,
labored, and irregular, denoting the brain as the seat of injury.
Grounsell, therefore, proceeded to examine the head, which, covered with
clogged and matted blood, presented a terrific appearance; yet neither
there nor elsewhere was there any trace of injury by fire-arms. The
history of discovery was soon told. A shepherd had detected the body as
he passed the spot, and, hailing some peasants on their way to Florence,
advised their taking charge of it to the city, where they would be
surely recompensed. The natural suggestion of Grounsel's mind was that,
in making his escape from the gendarmes, Onslow had fallen over a cliff.
To convey him home, and get him to bed, if possible, before Sir Stafford
should hear of the misfortune, was his first care; and in this he
succeeded. It was the time when Sir Stafford usually slept; and
Grounsell was able to examine his patient, and satisfy himself that no
fatal injury was done, long before the old Baronet awoke.
“Sir Stafford wishes to see you, sir; he asked for you repeatedly
to-day,” said Proctor.
“Has he heard--does he know anything of this?” said Grounsell, with a
gesture to the bed where George lay.
“Not a word, sir. He was very cheerful all the morning, but wondering
where you could have gone, and what Mister George was doing.”
“Now for it, then,” muttered Grounsell to himself, as, with clasped
hands and knitted brows, he walked along; his mind suffering the very
same anxieties as had oftentimes beset him on the eve of some painful
operation in his art.
“Well, Grounsell,” said the old man, with a smile, as he entered, “is
it to give me a foretaste of my altered condition that you all desert me
to-day? You have never come near me, nor George either, so far as I can
learn.”
“We've had a busy morning of it, Stafford,” said the doctor, sitting
down on the bed, and laying his finger on the pulse. “You are
better--much better to-day. Your hand is like itself, and your eye is
free from fever.”
“I feel it, Gronnsell,--I feel as if, with some twenty years less upon
my back, I could like to begin my tussle with the world, and try issue
with the best.”
“You 're young enough, and active enough yet, for what is before you,
Stafford. Yesterday I told you of everything in colors perhaps gloomier
than reality. The papers of to-day are somewhat more cheery in their
tidings. The hurricane may pass over, and leave us still afloat; but
there is another trial for you, my old friend, and you must take heart
to bear it well and manfully.”
Sir Stafford sat up in his bed, and, grasping Grounsell by either
shoulder, cried out, “Go on--tell it quickly.”
“Be calm, Stafford; be yourself, my old friend,” said Grounsell,
terrified at the degree of emotion he had called up. “Your own
courageous spirit will not desert you now.”
“I know it,” said the old man, as, relaxing his grasp, he fell back upon
the pillow, and then, turning on his face, he uttered a deep groan. “I
know your tidings now,” cried he, in a burst of agony. “Oh, Grounsell,
what is all other disgrace compared to this?”
“I am speaking of George--of your son,” interposed Gronnsell, hastily,
and seizing with avidity the opportunity to reveal all at once. “He left
this for Pratolino this morning to fight a duel, but by some mischance
has fallen over a cliff, and is severely injured.”
“He's dead,--you would tell me he is dead!” said the old man, in a
faint, thrilling whisper.
“Far from it Alive, and like to live, but still sorely crushed and
wounded.”
“Oh, God!” cried the old man, in a burst of emotion, “what worldliness
is in my heart when I am thankful for such tidings as this! When it is a
relief to me to know that my child--my only son--lies maimed and broken
on a sick-bed, instead of--instead of--” A gush of tears here broke in
upon his utterance, and he wept bitterly.
Grounsell knew too well the relief such paroxysms afford to interfere
with their course; while, to avoid any recurrence, even in thought,
to the cause, he hurriedly told all that he knew of George's intended
meeting with the Frenchman, and his own share in disturbing the
rendezvous.
Sir Stafford never spoke during this recital. The terrible shock seemed
to have left its stunning influence on his faculties, and he appeared
scarcely able to take in with clearness the details into which the other
entered.
“She's gone to Como, then,” were the first words he uttered,----“to
this villa the Prince has lent her?”
“So I understand; and, from what Proctor says, the Russian is going to
marry the Dalton girl.”
“Miss Dalton is along with Lady Hester?”
“To be sure; they travel together, and George was to have followed
them.”
“Even scandal, Grounsell, can make nothing of this. What say you, man?”
“You may defy it on that score, Stafford. But let us talk of what is
more imminent,----of George.”
“I must see him, Grounsell; I must see my poor boy,” said he, rising,
and making an effort to get out of bed; but weakness and mental
excitement together overcame him, and he sank back again, fainting and
exhausted. To this a deep, heavy sleep succeeded, and Grounsell stole
away, relieved in mind by having acquitted himself of his painful task,
and free to address his thoughts to other cares.
“Lord Norwood wishes to see you, sir,” said a servant to the doctor, as
he at last seated himself for a moment's rest in his chamber; and before
Grounsell could reply, the noble Viscount entered.
“Excuse this abrupt visit, sir; but I have just heard of poor Onslow's
accident Is there any danger in his condition?”
“Great and imminent danger, my Lord.”
“By Jove!--sorry for it you don't happen to know how it occurred?”
“A fall, evidently, was the cause; but how incurred, I cannot even
guess.”
“In the event of his coming about again, when might we expect to see him
all right,--speaking loosely, of course?”
“Should he recover, it will take a month, or, perhaps, two, before he
convalesces.”
“The devil it will! These Frenchmen can't be made to understand the
thing at all; and as Guilmard received a gross personal outrage, he is
perfectly out of his mind at the delay in obtaining satisfaction. What
is to be done?”
“I am a poor adviser in such cases, my Lord; nor do I see that the
matter demands any attention from us whatever.”
“Not from _you_, perhaps,” said Norwood, insolently; “but I had the
misfortune to go out as his friend! My position is a most painful and
critical one.”
“I should suppose that no one will understand how to deal with such
embarrassments better than your Lordship.”
“Thanks for the good opinion; the speech I take to be a compliment,
however you meant it. I believe I am not altogether unskilled in such
affairs, and it is precisely because such is the case that I am here
now. Onslow, in other hands than mine, is a ruined man. The story, tell
it how you will, comes to this: that, having gone out to meet a man he
had grossly insulted, he wanders away from the rendezvous, and is found
some hours after at the foot of the cliff, insensible. He may have
fallen, he may have been waylaid,--though everything controverts this
notion; or, lastly, he may have done the act himself. There will be
advocates for each view of the case; but it is essential, for his honor
and reputation, that one story should be authenticated. Now, I am quite
ready to stand godfather to such a version, taking all the consequences,
however serious, on myself.”
“This is very kind, very generous, indeed, my Lord,” said Grounsell,
suddenly warming into an admiration of one he was always prejudiced
against.
“Oh, I'm a regular John Bull!” said the Viscount, at once assuming the
burden of that canticle, which helped him in all moments of hypocrisy.
“Always stand by the old stock,--nothing like them, sir. The Anglo-Saxon
blood will carry all before it yet; never suffer a rascally foreigner
to put his foot on one of your countrymen. Have him out, sir; parade the
fellow at once: that's my plan.”
“I like your spirit!” cried Grounsell, enthusiastically.
“To be sure you do, old cock!” exclaimed Norwood, clapping him
familiarly on the shoulder. “Depend upon it, _I_ 'll pull George through
this. _I_ 'll manage the matter cleverly. There must be no mistake about
it; no room for doubt or equivocation, you know. All straightforward,
open, and manly: John Bull every inch of It That's _my_ notion, at
least,----I hope it's yours?”
“Perfectly,--thoroughly so!”
“Well, then, just hand that note to Sir Stafford.” Here he placed a
sealed letter in Grounsell's hand. “Tell him what I've just told you.
Let him fairly understand the whole question, and let me have the
contents this evening at the _café_ in the Santa Trinita,--say about
nine o'clock; not later than that These fellows always gather about that
hour.”
“I'll take care of it,” said Grounsell.
“All right!” cried Norwood, gayly, as he arose and adjusted the curls
beneath his hat. “My compliments to the old gent, and tell George not to
make himself uneasy. He 's in safe hands. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, my Lord, good-bye,” said Grounsell, who, as he looked
after him, felt, as it were, unconsciously recurring to all his former
prejudices and dislikes of the noble Viscount “Those fellows,” muttered
he, “are as inexplicable to me as a new malady, of which I neither know
the stages nor the symptoms. The signs I take for those of health may
be precisely the indications of corruption; and what I deem unsound may
turn out to be exactly the opposite.” And so be fell into a musing fit,
in which certainly his estimate of Lord Norwood continued steadily
to fall lower and lower the longer he thought of him. “He must be
a rogue!--he must be a scoundrel! Nature makes all its blackguards
plausible, just as poison-berries are always brilliant to look at They
are both intended to be the correctives of rash impressions, and I
was only a fool ever to be deceived by him. Out of this, at all
hazards,--that's the first thing!” muttered Grounsell to himself, as
he walked hastily up and down the room. “The place is like a plague
district, and we must not carry an infected rag away from it! Glorious
Italy, forsooth! There's more true enlightenment, there's a higher
purpose, and a nobler view of life in the humblest English village, than
in the proudest halls of their Eternal City!”
In such pleasant reflections on national character he entered Sir
Stafford's room, and found his friend seated at a table covered with
newly arrived letters; the seals were all unbroken, and the sick man was
turning them over, and gazing at the different handwritings with a sad
and listless apathy.
“I 'm glad you 've come, Grounsell. I have not courage for this,” said
he, pointing to the mass of letters before him.
“Begging impostors, one half of them, I 'll be sworn!” said Grounsell,
seating himself to the work. “Was I not right? Here's a Cabinet Minister
suing for your vote on an Irish question, and entreating your speedy
return to England, 'where, he trusts, the object you are both interested
in may be satisfactorily arranged.' Evasive rascal! Could n't he say,
'you shall have the Peerage for your support'? Would n't it be more
frank and more intelligible to declare, 'We take you at your price'?
These,” said he, throwing half a dozen contemptuously from him, “are
all from your constituents. The 'independent borough' contains seventy
electors; and if you owned the patronage of the two services, with a
fair share of the public offices and India, you could n't content them.
I 'd tell them fairly, 'I have bought you already; the article is paid
for and sent home. Let us hear no more about it!' This is more cheering.
Shoenhals, of Riga, stands firm, and the Rotterdam house will weather
the gale. That's good news, Onslow!” said he, grasping the old man's
hand. “This is from Calcutta. Prospects are brightening a little in that
quarter, too. Come, come,--there's some blue in the sky. Who knows what
good weather 's in store for us?”
Onslow's lip trembled, and he passed his hand over his eyes without
speaking.
“This is from Como,” said Grounsell, half angrily, tossing away a highly
perfumed little three-cornered note.
“Give it to me,----let me see it,” said Onslow, eagerly; while with
trembling fingers he adjusted his spectacles to read. Grounsell handed
him the epistle, and walked to the window.
“She's quite well,” read Sir Stafford, aloud; “they had delightful
weather on the road, and found Como in full beauty on their arrival.”
Grounsell grumbled some angry mutterings between his teeth, and shrugged
up his shoulders disdainfully. “She inquires most kindly after me, and
wishes me to join them there, for Kate Dalton's betrothal.”
“Yet she never took the trouble to visit you when living under the same
roof!” cried Grounsell, indignantly.
The old man laid down the letter, and seemed to ponder for some moments.
“What's the amount?--how much is the sum?” asked Grounsell, bluntly.
“The amount!--the sum!----of what?” inquired Sir Stafford.
“I ask, what demand is she making, that it is prefaced thus?”
“By Heaven! if you were not a friend of more than fifty years' standing,
you should never address me as such again,” cried Onslow, passionately.
“Has ill-nature so absorbed your faculties that you have not a good
thought or good feeling left you?”
“My stock of them decreases every day,----ay, every hour, Onslow,” said
he, with a deeper emotion than he had yet displayed. “It is, indeed,
a sorry compromise, that if age is to make us wiser, it should make us
less amiable, also!”
“You are not angry with me?--not offended, Grounsell?” said Onslow,
grasping his hand in both his own.
“Not a bit of it But, as to temperament, _I_ can no more help _my_
distrust, than _you_ can conquer _your_ credulity, which is a happier
philosophy, after all.”
“Then come, read that letter, Grounsell,” said Onslow, smiling
pleasantly. “Put your prejudices aside for once, and be just, if not
generous.”
Grounsell took the note, and walked to the window to read it. The
note was just what he expected,--a prettily turned inquiry after
her husband's health, interwoven with various little pleasantries of
travelling, incidents of the road, and so forth. The invitation was a
mere suggestion, and Grounsell was half angry at how little there was to
find fault with; for, even to the “Very sincerely yours, Hester Onslow,”
all was as commonplace as need be. Accidentally turning over the page,
however, he found a small slip of silver paper,--a bank check for five
hundred pounds, only wanting Onslow's signature. Grounsell crushed it
convulsively in his palm, and handed the note back to Onslow, without a
word.
“Well, are you convinced?--are you satisfied now?” asked Onslow,
triumphantly.
“I am perfectly so!” said Grounsell, with a deep sigh. “You must write,
and tell her that business requires your immediate presence in England,
and that George's condition will necessitate a return by sea. Caution
her that the Daltons should be consulted about this marriage, which, so
far as I know, they have not been; and I would advise, also, seeing that
there may be some interval before you can write again, that you should
send her a check,--say for five hundred pounds.”
“So you _can_ be equitable,-Grounsell,” cried the other, joyously.
“And here is a letter from Lord Norwood,” said Grounsell, not heeding
the remark, and breaking the seal as he spoke. “Laconic, certainly.
'Let me have the enclosed by this evening.--N.' The enclosed are
five acceptances for two hundred each; the 'value received' being his
Lordship's services in upholding your son's honor. Now here, at least,
Onslow, I 'll have my own way.” And, with these words, he seated himself
at a table and wrote:----
My Lord,--Living in a land where assassination is cheap, and
even men of small fortune can keep a Bravo, I beg to return
your Lordship's bills, without submitting them to my friend
for endorsement, your price being considerably above the
tariff of the country, and more calculated to your own
exigencies than the occasion which it was meant to
remunerate. I am, yours,
Paul Grounsell.
“What have you said there, Grounsell? you look so self-satisfied, it can
scarcely be over-civil.”
“There,----'To the Viscount Norwood'” said Grounsell, as he sealed and
addressed the note. “We are getting through our work rapidly. In a week,
or even less, if George's symptoms show nothing worse, we shall get
away from this; and even on the sea one feels half as though it were
England.”
We need not follow Grounsell through the busy days which ensued, nor
track him in his various negotiations with tradespeople,
bankers, house-agents, and that legionary class which are called
“commissionaires.” Enough if we say that, in arranging for the departure
of his friends, his impressions of Italian roguery received many an
additional confirmation; and that, when the last day of their sojourn
arrived, his firm conviction was that none but a millionnaire could
afford to live in this the very cheapest capital of Europe!
And now they are gone! steaming calmly away across the Gulf of Genoa.
They have closed the little episode of their life in Italy, and with
heavy hearts are turning homeward. The great Mazzarini Palace looks sad
and forlorn; nor do we mean to linger much longer on a scene whence the
actors have departed.