I found Miss Rossano and her father in the vestry of a Wesleyan
Methodist chapel. The room was crammed almost to suffocation, and there
was such a crowd outside that it took us ten minutes' hard fighting to
reach the neighboring school-room in which the public meeting was to be
held. The way was cleared at last, and a score or so of us filed on
to the platform, which was erected at one end of the crowded hall. My
visitor of that afternoon immediately preceded Miss Rossano and the
count, and I followed on their heels.
As we reached the platform the gaunt phantom swung round upon us, and in
a voice like the call of a trumpet announced “The Exile.”
I had already had a taste of the patriotic enthusiasm of the crowd that
morning, but I had never seen anything which did more than approach the
delirious excitement which set in at this announcement.
There was not a seat in the body of the room, and the men who occupied
the floor were packed like herrings in a barrel. One could see nothing
but a great wave of swarthy, eager faces, and could hear nothing but a
tumult like the roaring of the sea. There was hardly a man in the whole
assemblage who was not weeping with excitement; and though I have rather
a knack of keeping a cool head under such circumstances, I have to own
that I was deeply moved.
It seemed impossible to stop the cheering. Ruffiano, who had constituted
himself chairman, gesticulated like a windmill, and roared till he was
hoarse in the vain effort to secure silence. It took a full quarter of
an hour to wear out this prodigious welcome, and even then it broke out
anew in scattered bursts and spurts, as if the people could never have
enough of it.
All this while Miss Rossano stood at her father's side, holding one
of his hands in both her own. The tears were streaming down her face
without cessation, but I had never seen her look so radiant--not even on
the night when I first saw her, and the happy brightness of her beauty
made me her life-long servant.
The count, poor man, was shaken altogether out of self-control. He hid
his eyes with his frail hand, and his tears ran like rain through his
wasted fingers. I have tried many and many a time to realize in my own
mind what he must have felt, but I have always known the futility of the
effort.
Twenty years of solitary imprisonment, a martyrdom of physical
degradation quite unspeakable, and sickening even to think of for a
moment, darkness, torture, utter despair, and then freedom and human
tears, and this astounding roar of triumph, sympathy, and welcome! It
was no wonder the scene unmanned him. The wonder was that he had
not sunk into an unquestioning animalism--a mere brute state of
idiocy--years ago.
There was speech-making enough and to spare when the cheering at last
was over. The count himself spoke a few broken words of thanks, which
elicited another roar of sympathy and welcome scarcely inferior in
volume to the first and only less prolonged. To tell the truth, I felt
the whole business rather trying, and I got heartily sick of the name
of the courageous, illustrious, magnanimous, and altogether noble and
magnificent Signor Fyfa. I knew perfectly well, though I could not
understand a tenth part of what was said, that Brunow's shameless
exaggerations were accepted here as solid truth, and that I was being
lauded for a number of splendid qualities which, to say the least, I had
had no chance of displaying. The illustrious, courageous, magnanimous,
and altogether noble Brunow came in for his share of the praise, and
bowed solemnly, with his hand upon his heart, whenever the crowd cheered
him. He made a speech in Italian, and achieved an overwhelming success.
Finally, the whole business was over. We had got back to the vestry, and
all but a few of the chieftains had gone away, when I first became aware
of the presence of the Baroness Bonnar. A light hand touched my sleeve,
and a foreign voice spoke to me in English.
“This is a noble occasion. I have never been so moved in my life. I have
cried until I am not fit to be seen.”
Turning and looking at the speaker, I failed for a mere instant to
recognize her. I had seen her but twice before, and then only for a
moment at a time, and under circumstances of no especial interest. She
saw the doubt in my face, and reintroduced herself. She looked extremely
pretty, and even fascinating, in a coquettish little bonnet of the
fashion of that time.
When her face was in repose one could judge of her age, but when she
smiled all her wrinkles--and there were a good many of them--melted into
the smile, and her face looked almost girlishly young and innocent. She
owned that look of youth and freshness in spite of the fact that she was
rouged and powdered and painted as if she had been ready for the stage.
It was pretty easy to see that she had not been quite as much affected
by the “noble occasion” as she pretended to have been, for the slightest
shower of tears would have ruined that admirable and artistic make-up.
“I pass for Austrian,” said the baroness; “but I am Hungarian all over,
and I hate, I hate, I hate the Austrians! If I had my way I would kill
them every one.”
She spoke with a pretty enough pretence of vindictiveness, but her
manner was not very convincing.
Supposing I had been aware of this little person's purpose, what should
I have done, I wonder? What should I have been justified in doing? I had
rather not answer that question, even to myself. But if I had known for
a certainty what was in her heart, and what lay in the future, there are
not many things at which I should have hesitated to spoil her plans.
She did not find me very sympathetic or very ardent. I was tired, for
one thing, and for another I can never take very kindly to humbug, even
when a pretty woman offers it. The baroness turned from me to Brunow,
beseeching him to introduce her to the acquaintance of that dear and
charming Miss Rossano, who had so much her sympathy, and the spectacle
of whose natural emotion had so much affected her. I am not very
observant in such matters, but though Brunow disguised it pretty well,
I am sure that I noticed some reluctance in his manner. He made the
presentation, however, and the baroness flowed out in sympathy and
congratulation.
“I am myself Hungarian,” I heard her say, “but I have lived in Austria
half my life. There is no need to tell _you_ anything about that
terrible government, but--mon Dieu! the things I have seen and known!
I am a stranger, Mees Rossano, and the hour is sacred; but you will
forgive this intrusion, will you not? because I could not help it.”
She spoke with so much vivacity and feeling that I felt a little sorry
for my contemptuous thoughts of her. She had said her say, and she
behaved with more reticence and more apparent delicacy than I should
have been disposed to give her credit for. She said something to the
count in a low and rapid voice, and he answered by the offer of his
hand, and a mere broken murmur of response. I made out that she had
asked to be honored by taking the hand of one ennobled by so much
suffering, and the quiet and unobtrusive fashion in which she slipped
from the room after offering this tribute raised her anew in my opinion.
It would have been a just thing, had one known all, to have crushed that
dangerous and wicked little viper exactly as if she had really been a
snake, instead of a woman with a snake's nature.
She went her way, however, having begun her work of mischief under my
eyes.
Another night or two of such emotion would have been fatal to our
rescued prisoner; and, indeed, he gave us all a fright before we got
him home that evening. All the enthusiasts had cleared away, and I was
leading the poor gentleman towards a cab which had been already summoned
and was now waiting in the street, when, without warning, he swooned
away. I felt his arm slipping rapidly from mine, and caught him just in
time to save him from a heavy fall. I carried him back to the vestry,
and there we loosened his collar and laid him on the couch, and dashed
water in his face, while Brunow ran for brandy. He recovered in a while,
but was even then too weak to walk, so that I carried him in my arms to
the street, and set him down in the cab. My wife has often told me, in
talking over those old times, that she looked on me at that moment as a
man possessed of Herculean strength; but, in truth, the poor fellow was
so attenuated that his weight was scarcely greater than a child's.
I could hardly do less than call at Lady Rollinson's house next day
to inquire after the sufferer's condition; and yet I went with great
reluctance. I was so eager to be there, I was so willing to spend every
hour in Miss Rossano's company, that I was afraid of being intrusive,
and my very anxiety to be near her kept me away from her in this foolish
fashion many a time.
The Baroness Bonnar was before me when I called, and I found her there
in the daintiest and most becoming of visiting costumes, chatting away
with excellent tact and unfailing vivacity.
She gave Miss Rossano time to welcome me, and then assailed me at once
with laudation's of my devotion and courage, which I received, I know,
with an extremely evil grace. I resemble my neighbors in liking to
have credit for what I have done, but I know nothing more hateful than
unmerited praise. I silenced her at last, and she turned upon Miss
Rossano with a stage-whisper intended for my hearing: “I adore these
brave men who are too modest to endure praise.”
“You are too oily for my personal taste, madame,” I said to myself, and
my earlier dislike for her came back again.
The count, I learned, was better. Immediately on his arrival at Lady
Rollinson's the family doctor had been sent for. Like a wise man, he had
prescribed rest and complete freedom from all excitement. There were
to be no more public meetings, and the sufferer was seriously warned
against all stress of emotion.
“We have had great difficulty,” said Miss Rossano, “in bringing him to
reason. The enthusiasm of last night's meeting has convinced him that a
great uprising is near at hand, and that in a year or two at the outside
Italy will have her freedom back again. He would die for that,” she
said, with a flash of her beautiful eyes, and her face suddenly pale
with feeling. “The house was overrun with Italians yesterday,” she
added. “My father saw some of them, and they are all full of the news
that Charles Albert is ready to march into Piedmont, and that the Pope
is favorable to devolution. One never knows how much truth there is in
these stories, but I have lived in an atmosphere of them all my life.”
Then she laughed on a sudden, and, clapping her hands together, turned
on me with a swift gesture like that of a pleased child. “You saw
the Count Ruffiano yesterday?” she asked; and I, answering in the
affirmative, she laughed again. “The poor dear old gentleman,” she said,
“is my father's one surviving comrade, and ever since I have been able
to understand he has talked to me about Italy and The Cause. He is in
fiery earnest, and such a dreamer that he has been looking forward to
every month of his life as the date of Italy's liberty. I have had a
great deal of influence with the count”--she was serious again by this
time--“and through him over the Italian revolutionists in London, and I
have always counselled them not to strike until they were sure of their
aim. An unsuccessful revolution is a crime. You think it strange that a
girl should be thinking of these things.”
“Indeed, no,” I answered. “I should think it strange in your case if you
had no such thoughts. And let me tell you, Miss Rossano, that I think
your friend Count Rumano's dream is coming near at last. He may wake any
fine morning to find it very near indeed.”
“You think so?” she cried, with a restrained vehemence. “You have heard
news while you were abroad?”
“No news,” I answered; “but I can see the general trend of things. There
is an awakening spirit of liberty on the Continent, and unless I am much
mistaken, a map of Europe of this date will be a surprising thing to
look at in half a dozen years.”
I should be a fool to pretend that I foresaw all the political changes
which have taken place since then, but I should have been blind if I
had not foreseen some of them. Liberty was in the air; there was an
underlying strife and turmoil in the world's affairs which was not
evident to everybody, though a soldier of fortune like myself, who made
the cause of liberty his trade, was bound to be aware of it. The great
politicians knew it all, no doubt; but they kept their knowledge to
themselves, and waited, as we know now, with a bitter anxiety and fear
for what events might bring. For the great politicians were, for the
most part, then, as now, afraid of liberty, and looked on it as being
very much of a curse rather than a blessing.
“You would fight for Italy,” she said, “if there were a real chance?”
“If there were anything approaching a chance,” I responded, “I would
fight for Italy.”
If I had dared I would have told her what was really at the bottom of my
thought: I would have fought gladly for Italy; but the fact that it was
her cause, that she espoused it and hoped for it, that her father had
been buried alive for it, made it dearer to me than any other in the
world. I had almost forgotten that we were not alone when the Baroness
Bonnar proclaimed her presence.
“Italy!” she cried; and as I turned at the sound of her voice I saw her
bring the palms of her gloved hands together and turn her fine eyes to
the ceiling as if the word inspired her--“Italy! oh, if I were a man I
would fight for Italy! Ah, those hateful Austrians! And what a man is
Cavour! and what a man Garibaldi! Oh, they will fight! They will win!”
“There is plenty of time yet. Liberty, my dear Miss Rossano, will
restore your father to health, and he will not lose his share of the
glory.” We English always excuse a foreigner who shows a tendency to
bombast in conversation; and allowing for her partial knowledge of the
language, and for the oratorical turn her people have, I saw nothing
overstrained in the little woman's raptures. I had even a modified
belief in their reality; and even to this day I cannot blame myself for
having been deceived by her. She had an astonishing capacity in her own
line, and though she had achieved no great success on the stage, she was
the most perfect actress off it I have ever known.
She showed no disposition to prolong her visit, but withdrew after a
stay of a quarter of an hour or so, with many expressions of good-will
and ardent hope for the count's early recovery. If she might have the
honor, she would call again upon Miss Rossano.
“Pardon me,” she said; “beside you I am an old woman, and I can take
a liberty. I like you for your interest in poor Italy and for your
father's sake, who has been a martyr in such a cause. You will let me
see you sometimes. People who know me better than you do will tell you
that I am a butterfly, and without a heart. But that is not true. I do
not show my heart often, and never unless I mean it.”
She was gone without waiting for a response, and Miss Rossano, turning
to me with a blush and a smile, asked me if I did not consider her
visitor quite a charming little person. It would have been ungracious
on no evidence at all to have stated my real mind, and I compromised by
saying nothing. My silence on that topic went unobserved; and until I
took my leave we talked about the count and the prospects of The Cause.
It makes me smile now to remember how savagely in earnest I grew to be
about that matter of Italian independence when once I had discovered
that Miss Rossano was seriously interested in it. That, if I had only
thought about it, was the way to her heart; but anxious as I was to
secure her good opinion, I was guilty of no pretences. The mere fact
that she desired it would have been enough to make me desire it also,
even if I had had no wishes that way to begin with.
“Captain Fyffe,” said Miss Rossano, suddenly, in the midst of our
enthusiastic talk upon this theme, “I am going to ask you a favor. I
know very little of my father as yet. I have not spent twelve hours in
his society, but it is easy to find out two things about it: he will be
mad to join in any effort that The Cause may make, and--”
She paused there, with a look of semi-embarrassment.
“And?” I interrogated.
“I think,” she continued, “that he is likely to be very much influenced
by your opinion.”
“We have scarcely exchanged a word together on that topic,” I responded.
“Ah,” she returned, quickly, “you have influenced his judgment without
that. He has formed opinions about you, and he has expressed them more
than once. He thinks you are a man of unusually solid character, and I
am sure you will be able to influence him greatly. You must remember,
too, what a debt of gratitude he owes you. The more warmly you are
disposed to The Cause yourself, the more necessary it seems to beg
you not to allow him to rush into any new danger. Give us, at least, a
little time in which to know each other before he leaves me again.”
I promised earnestly that I would never say a word to induce him to
leave her side. I promised that if any undertaking should seem to
lead him into useless danger, I would do my best to warn him from the
enterprise. I promised further (but this was to myself, and I said no
word about it) that in the event of any effort being made the count
should be my comrade, and that I would do my loyal best for him.
That brought our conversation to an end, and I took leave of her, but
not before she had assured me that I should always be a welcome visitor.
I went away mighty proud and happy, and when I got home to my chambers
who should I find awaiting me but the Count Ruffiano, buttoned to the
throat to disguise the absence of the linen which had been so shabbily
conspicuous yesterday. He was in a state of intense excitement, and
when I entered was pacing up and down the room like one scarcely able to
control himself.
“Pardon this second intrusion, my dear sir,” he began; “I will explain
its purport in a moment.”
I induced him to be seated; but before he had got out half his statement
he was on his feet again, striding about my little room in such a heat
of excitement that, lean as he was, the perspiration fell in big drops
from his thatched eyebrows and the tip of his Quixote nose.
“To begin with, sir,” he said, when I had persuaded him to be seated,
“you are one of us? That you are a friend to humanity, I know, but a
friend to Italy--yes?”
I was still hot from my talk with Miss Rossano, and I assured the count
that I was very much a friend to Italy indeed.
“Then, sir,” he cried, “we have need of you! We have need of every
counsel--of every hand.”
He was on his feet again, and had intrenched himself behind the
arm-chair. He declaimed from that position as if it had been a rostrum,
employing a wealth and variety of gesture which no English mimic could
succeed in copying in a year.
News, it appeared, had arrived that morning from Paris which led to the
belief that an uprising against Louis Philippe might shortly be looked
for. The messenger who brought that news had within twenty-four hours
encountered a messenger from Turin, who prophesied insurrection there;
this messenger in turn had news from Vienna from another comrade, who
was assured that Metternich was trembling in his shoes at the thought of
Charles Albert's threatened advance on Piedmont.
“The wine,” cried my Italian Quixote, “is in ferment! We drink of it,
and our hearts are turned to madness! We need more of your English
sang-froid”--he called it “sanga-froida,” and puzzled me for a passing
instant. “The hour is here,” he declared, “and the men are here! But,
until now, we have ruined everything by too much precipitation, and
against that we must now be on our guard!”
Of the volubility and energy with which he delivered himself of all
this, and much more, I cannot convey even the slightest idea. I can give
no notion of his fertility in unnecessary vowels, and I should be afraid
to say how many syllables he made of the word precipitation, or how he
would have spelled it in English if he had tried.
“It is for you, sir,” he thundered, stopping in his headlong walk to
shake a long forefinger in my face--“it is for you to teach us to be
calm!”
I asked him to take his first lesson there and then, and to begin it by
being seated.
“Ah,” said he, “that is to be practical--that is to be English. To
be practical and to be English is to be successful. You shall advise
us--you shall lead us to victory!”
In his discovery of the excellence of my practical method he had
forgotten all about it, and was pounding up and down the room at as
great a rate as ever, when I took him by the shoulders and forced him
into a chair.
“Let us talk business,” I said, severely; “if this means anything at
all, it means action.”
“Action,” he responded, “decisive and immediate!”
“Action,” I retorted, “well matured and sane!”
“Ah! yes, yes,” cried Ruffiano; “again, dear sir, you correct me. That
is why I am here. But do not think because I have no patience--do
not think because I am an old--an old--” He searched in his mind for
a simile, and burst out with “gas-balloon” with a laugh of childish
amusement at his own impetuosity. “Do not you think because I am an old
gas-balloon that there are not among us no wiser and cooler heads than
mine! We are at a white-heat now, but there are men among us who can
keep their wits even in a furnace like this. I, dear sir”--he would
have been on his feet again but that I checked him--“I am of the inner
council. We meet to-night, and, hot as I am, I fear my own heat and that
of others. If you wish well to Italy, be one of us. And be sure, sir,
that the rescuer of our one most dearest and most prized shall be
received with honor.”
I promised; and he undertook to call upon me at nine o'clock that
evening. And thus, within a day of my return to London, I found
myself pledged to Italy; and a few hours later made one of a caucus of
conspirators, poor and needy and inconsiderable enough to look at, but
holding in their hands, after all, one or two of the strings which,
being pulled at the ripe hour of time, changed the scene for more than
one land in Europe.