The baroness walked to the window as the servant retired, throwing upon
me as she went by a look of mingled triumph and disdain. I had no word
to say for myself, and I awaited the progress of events with wonder. The
baroness looked out upon the street, with her tiny foot tapping at the
carpet, until the servant returned.
“Well?” said she, imperatively turning on him.
The man looked confused and stammered.
“Well?” she repeated, with an angry impatience.
“I beg your pardon, Madame la Baronne, but I am to say--”
“You are to say?” she echoed, scornfully, seeing that he paused and
stammered anew. “Say what you are to say.”
“Perhaps it would be better,” the man said, “if I spoke to madame
alone.”
“Say what you have to say,” his mistress commanded. “I presume you have
an answer from Miss Pleyel?”
The man who was a young and by no means ill-looking fellow, was
evidently in considerable distress. “It is not my fault, Madame la
Baronne,” he said, with an appealing glance at me, “but Miss
Pleyel's message is that she declines to meet Captain Fyffe under any
circumstances.”
“That will do,” said his mistress. “You can go.”
The man retired once more. I could see that the baroness was
disappointed, but she made the best of the circumstances.
“I am not surprised,” she said, with as fine an expression of scorn as
she could command.
“Nor am I,” I responded. “It is natural that Miss Pleyel should not wish
to meet one who knew her fifteen years ago.”
“It is like a man and a soldier,” she said, “to presume upon the natural
delicacy of a lady under such circumstances. She shrinks from you and
fears you. She dare not encounter you even in the presence of so dear
a friend as I am. But I do not shrink from you, Captain Fyffe, and I am
not afraid of you. I tell you once more that I think your coming here
is, all things considered, as pretty a piece of audacity as I can
remember.”
“Madame,” I answered, “I came here with a purpose. When I have fulfilled
that purpose I will relieve you of my presence.”
“Go on,” she interjected, contemptuously.
“The position is both difficult and delicate, but my duty is plain, and
I see no way of escape from it.”
“Your duty to yourself,” said the baroness, “is plain enough. Such
a man as I see you now to be will make it his duty, at any cost, to
defend himself.”
“To defend himself from what, madame?” I asked, surprised at her
boldness.
“From the plain truth,” she answered, with an expression of anger and
disdain which, if not real, was an excellent bit of acting in its way.
“The brave Captain Fyffe is ambitious, and has made up his mind to marry
money; but Miss Rossano, whom I have the honor to know, might shrink
from Captain Fyffe if she knew him to be not merely a penniless
adventurer, but a perjured and heartless villain.'
“Madame,” I replied, “I will not be so poor a diplomatist as to lose my
temper over these charges. There are hundreds of people still alive in
my native place to whom Miss Pleyel's miserable history is known, and
such a charge as you are making could only excite derision if it were
openly brought against me.”
“You came here with a purpose,” she said, coldly. “I shall be obliged if
you will fulfil your purpose, and--”
“When I have fulfilled my purpose I will go. I will be as brief as I
can. When I was a lad of twenty I was desperately in love with Miss
Constance Pleyel, or thought I was, which at that time of life is pretty
much the same thing.”
“It will serve at any time of life,” said the baroness. She listened
with an air of aversion and impatience, which made a painful task more
painful to perform.
“My father was a half-pay officer,” I went on, “very poor and very
proud. Miss Pleyel's father was a tradesman, an Austrian Jew, rich,
vulgar, and ostentatious.”
“Rich, certainly,” the baroness responded. “I can congratulate you
on one point, Captain Fyffe; you have not yet, so far as I can learn,
suffered sentiment to blind you to the charms of wealth.”
I passed the sneer. When a man is resolutely bent upon a journey he does
not stop to fight the flies that tease him.
“We moved in different circles. I spoke to Miss Pleyel perhaps a dozen
times, but in the hot enthusiasm of youthful love I wrote to her often.”
“I have seen your letters,” said the baroness, with a short,
contemptuous laugh. “They might have deceived any woman.”
I allowed myself to be diverted for a moment.
“She keeps them? It is a sign of grace in her that she cares, after so
many years, to remember an honest, boyish passion.”
“A sign of grace?” cried the baroness, passionately. “Oh, I lose
patience with this cool infamy!”
Now all this time has gone by I can recall this scene as if it were a
bit of stage play; and now that I can read every motive and understand
every movement, I am inclined to think the baroness's part in it the
finest piece of stage work I have ever seen.
“If you will permit me, madame, I will try to put the case in such a
way that there shall be no mistake as to what I mean to say. I saw Miss
Pleyel rarely, and never once in private. I wrote to her often; I wrote
reams of boyish nonsense, which was all meant in fiery earnest then.
Then news came. Miss Pleyel ran away from her father's house with
Colonel Hill-yard, a man of wealth, a married man with a large family,
and, in spite of that fact, a notorious _roue_. They lived abroad
for six months, and Miss Pleyel ran away from Colonel Hillyard with a
Russian officer, with whom she went to St. Petersburg, where she caught
a grand duke, who was so far fascinated as to contract a morganatic
marriage with her. Since that time Miss Pleyel's adventures have been
before the world. Her name has been lost under a score of aliases,
but there is no pretence between you and me, and no dispute as to her
identity.”
“Captain Fyffe,” said the baroness, “I do not yet think so poorly of you
as to believe that you have invented this abominable story, but I can
tell you that it is, from beginning to end, a tissue of falsehoods.”
“Pardon me, madame,” I responded, “there is no man living who knows that
wretched history half so well as I do.”
“Oh, you men, you men!” cried the baroness, sweeping her little white
hands towards the ceiling, and wringing them above her head with a
tragic gesture. She turned upon me suddenly, with an admirable burst
of passion and feeling. “Captain Fyffe, I am a woman of the world; I am
_expérimentée_--unhappily for me, too, too bitterly experienced. Believe
me, I already have the very poorest opinion of your sex. I beseech you
not to lower it further.”
“The most casual inquiry,” I answered, “if you should care to make it,
will confirm every word I have so far spoken. And now I need detain you
little longer. It is a terrible thing to say to a lady, but it must be
said. It is all the more terrible to say, because I had at one time a
sentimental worship for that poor creature who has proved herself so
often to be unworthy of any honest man's regard. No lady who knows
the reputation of Miss Constance Pleyel, or who, being warned of her
reputation, declines to test the truth of the warning and remains her
friend, can be permitted to associate, to my knowledge, with anybody for
whom I entertain the slightest regard or esteem.”
“Do I understand you to threaten me, Captain Fyffe?” asked the baroness.
“You must permit me for a moment to instruct you. My position in society
is secure enough to enable me to defend any _protégée_ of mine against
any insinuation which Captain Fyffe may make.”
“I make no insinuation,” I returned. “I lay plain facts before you. I
will send you by messenger, within an hour, the names and addresses of
a score of people who know the facts of the case. You shall, if you
choose, employ an agent, whose charges I will defray, and whose report I
will never ask to see.”
“Thank you, sir,” she answered. “I do not spy upon the people to whom I
profess to give my friendship.”
That was perhaps as heroic a lie as even a lady of the baroness's
profession ever uttered; but at that time I was not master of the facts
of the case, and the little woman spoke with so much dignity and nature
that she imposed upon me. I was really half ashamed of having suggested
to her a course which only a minute before seemed quite natural.
“Madame,” I said, “the position is a peculiar one, and it cannot be
encountered by ordinary means. I accept without reserve the declaration
you offer of your belief in Miss Pleyel's innocence. But then, you see,
unhappily, I know the whole story, and I am forced, however unwillingly,
to offer you an ultimatum.”
“Pray let me hear it,” she answered, in a tone of sarcasm.
“It is briefly this,” I said. “It is impossible that the Baroness Bonnar
should retain her association with Miss Pleyel and with Lady Rollinson
at the same time.”
“You guarantee that?” asked the baroness. “May I ask what means you
propose to adopt?”
“If I am compelled,” I answered, “but only in case I am compelled, I
shall take the one possible, straightforward course, and shall tell to
Lady Rollinson the story I have told to you.”
The baroness tried another tack.
“I have often heard it said,” she began, bitterly, “that it is only
women who have no mercy upon women. Do you tell me, Captain Fyffe, that
you can have the heart to hound this poor creature down, even if all
you charge against her were true, if all her life until now had been one
huge mistake? Is she to have no chance of amendment? Do not suppose,”
she cried, “that your story convinces me for a moment! I am looking at
your side alone, that is all.”
“Pardon me,” I felt constrained to answer, “I see no sign of any
wish for amendment. The only defence yet offered lies in a gross and
groundless accusation against myself. When I came here I had no idea
that Miss Pleyel meant to be dangerous to me. I learn from you the
course on which she has decided.”
“She!” cried the baroness. “She has decided upon nothing. Perhaps I have
been led too readily to leap at a conclusion. She has made no accusation
against you, poor thing; but I confess that I thought she was striving
to defend you. She was terribly agitated by the chance sight she caught
of you in the street last night. She has been weeping ever since. She
gave me your letters with some broken words, which perhaps I may have
misconstrued. If I have done you wrong, I beg your pardon. If I have
done you wrong, I beg your forgiveness with all my heart. But surely,
Captain Fyffe, you do not in cold blood propose to one woman that she
shall throw another on the world, that she should cast her, however
frail she may have been, into new temptations. You must let me tell
you,” she hurried on, raising her hand against me to arrest any
interruption I might have been disposed to make--“you must let me tell
you that I exercise some little forbearance in taking this tone at all.
No slander has ever touched my reputation, and I do not intend that it
shall smirch it now. I have but to say I have been deceived to establish
myself in the sight of all who know me. Tell me, sir, if you have ever
heard a whisper against my honor. Did ever man or woman breathe a word
in your hearing with respect to me which might not have been spoken of a
sister of your own?”
The plain truth was that I knew nobody but Bru-now who had any
acquaintance with the little lady's antecedents. He had certainly spoken
of her often in terms which I should have been very sorry to have heard
applied to a sister of mine if I had been so fortunate as to own one.
But, then, Brunow was a man about town, and a braggart at the same
time, and I had attached no more importance to his talk than to the
irresponsible babble of a baby. It was not my business to repeat
Brunow's stupid follies, and I kept silent. She, however, was not
disposed to let me off that way, but pressed me for an answer.
“Madame,” I was forced to say, “I am not so impertinent as to call your
reputation into question for an instant. I will not be so insolent as
to sit in judgment upon so delicate a question for a moment. I have said
all I had to say, and can see no reason for recalling any part of it.” I
bowed, and made a movement to retire, but she flashed between me and the
door, and faced me with supplicating hands.
“Think again, Captain Fyffe,” she besought me; “think again. Poor
Constance is not the heartless wretch you fancy her. She is alone in
the world; she is friendless, penniless. There is nobody to lend her a
helping hand, nobody to believe in her wish to lead a better life but
only poor little me. And of what avail is my belief in her, of what
avail is my wish to lift her from the mire if you should go from me and
trumpet her past abroad. I knew her, Captain Fyffe, when she was richer
and happier than she is now, when she was received by society in St.
Petersburg, when she was courted, admired, adored. I am sorry for her
in my soul. It would wring my heart to let her go. And notice, Captain
Fyffe, I am not trying to thrust her on the world, I am not trying
to introduce her to any friend of mine. When you saw us in the street
yesterday she drove out for the first time in my company in London. Ah,
Captain Fyffe, we cannot do much good in this miserable world if we try
ever so hard. I have never tried very hard. I have been a frivolous,
butterfly, useless creature; but at my time of life, you see, one begins
to have serious fancies. And it was mine to find this poor creature an
asylum, where she might hide her head from shame, and be free of all
temptation. You are a stern man, Captain Fyffe, you have shown me that,
but do not be all justice and no mercy.” She actually cried and clung to
me as she spoke, and even now it seems difficult to believe that there
was no genuine feeling at the bottom of it all, though I know perfectly
well that there was no ground for the merest scrap of it.
The situation was horribly embarrassing, and yet if I had been the most
yielding fool alive there was no escape. It was simply impossible that
I, with my eyes open, should permit any woman who openly associated with
Constance Pleyel to associate with Violet.
“I have no wish,” I answered, “to speak one word to Miss Pleyel's
disadvantage, and I have no right, to dictate terms to you; but if you
should insist on continuing your acquaintance with Miss Pleyel and with
Lady Rollinson, it will be my bounden duty to tell her ladyship what I
know, and leave her to act for herself.”
“Ah, well,” she cried, in a voice of despair, “I do not even know that I
can blame you; but am I to be sure that I can buy your silence?”
“That you can buy my silence?” I repeated.
“Yes,” she answered, despondently, looking up at me with tear-stained
eyes. “I mean--will you say nothing if I promise to visit Lady Rollinson
no more and to meet Miss Rossano no more? I am asking nothing for
myself, Captain Fyffe, remember, and I would not stoop to make terms at
all if it were not for this unhappy woman's sake. Will you promise me
this?”
I thought the matter over for a minute, and I promised. As it turned
out, I never did an unwiser thing; but I had no means of knowing how
unwise it was, and I was affected by her tears and protestations. If
Baroness Bonnar had not had the skill to bedevil cleverer men than
myself, and men twenty times as experienced, she would never have risen
to the position of eminence she occupied.
We parted on the understanding that she was to pay no more visits to
Lady Rollinson's house, but was to do her loyal best to avoid Violet
and her chaperon. I went away half inclined to think myself a brute for
having exacted that undertaking from her. Of course, if I had been the
man of the world I thought myself, I should never have gone to see her,
never have shown my hand, but should have awaited the development of
events after having told Lady Rollinson what I knew, and having left her
to safeguard her own interests and mine.
The whole business had been cruelly unpleasant, and I left the
baroness's house thinking that on the whole I was very well out of it. I
was sorry for the little lady herself, and did really and seriously
give her credit for good intentions, which proves either that she was an
exceptionally fine actress, or that I was an exceptional greenhorn.
I had scarcely left the house when I heard my name called in a loud
whisper, and, turning, saw the gaunt figure of Ruffiano within half a
dozen yards of me. He was astonishingly shabby still, but he rejoiced
in clean linen, and had been recently shaven, so that he looked far more
presentable than usual.
His eyes were blazing, and the whole of his long bony frame was hitching
and jolting with suppressed excitement.
“I have news!” he said; “such news! Which way go you? The man is here.”
I turned in the direction indicated, and saw a foreign-looking fellow in
a huge beard, a slouched hat, and a melodramatic cloak, looking for
all the world like a conspirator in an Adelphi or Olympic drama at that
date. It was raining slightly, but the man stood with folded arms in the
middle of the pavement at the street corner, like a statue of patience,
with the keen February wind buffeting his long cloak picturesquely about
him, and blowing his wild hair and beard in all directions. At a signal
from Ruffiano he crossed over to us, and the droll old Quixote, with
superabundant gesture, began to question him in Italian, the man
answering, of course, in the same tongue. When they had talked together
for four or five minutes Ruffiano turned upon me with his hands spread
wide, and his face beaming with triumph.
“You see,” he said.
“You forget, my dear count,” I told him, “that I don't understand a word
of what you have been saying.”
The count reviled himself, and plunged into apologies so fluent as to be
only half intelligible.
“This gentleman,” he said, indicating the shaggy melodramatist, “has but
now arrived by the morning train from Paris. The hour is here at last.
Louis Philippe has run away, and by this hour we suspect he is in
England. You know what that means for us?”
I knew what it meant very well, but I was not disposed to believe the
story without examination. I found that the messenger spoke no word of
any language but his own, and resolved on carrying him at once to Count
Rossano. To that end I called a hackney-coach, not greatly caring, I
confess it, to be seen in broad daylight in London streets with such an
astonishing pair of guys as poor old Ruffiano and his friend.
The count was at home, and, receiving us at once, heard the story with
an excitement equal to that of the narrator. When it was ended he turned
on me with the very phrase Ruffiano had used: “The hour is here!”
“You can trust this man?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” he responded.
I confessed that I should prefer to await a confirmation of his story by
the newspapers, but the count interrupted me with a wave of the hand.
“You will see,” he said, “that the newspapers will confirm the story
to-morrow, and in the meantime we shall have saved a day. France is
awake, and the awaking of France is the dawn of liberty for Italy. We
must hold a meeting to-night. You will wait?” he asked me. “I have a
hundred things to talk of, but I must first despatch Count Ruffiano to
our friends.”
“Yes,” cried Ruffiano, with a more than common emphasis on the
superfluous vowels he used, “we must meet to-night. The hour is here. In
a week from now we shall have the usurper by the throat. Wait but a
day, and you shall hear such news from Milano! They are ready there, and
there will be no holding them back this time.”
The count silenced him, and gave him rapid instructions in Italian. I
could follow most of what he said in this case, for I was familiar
with every name he mentioned. He was calling out the astutest and most
influential of the Italian refugees then in London. The revolutionary
Italian party, like all the revolutionary parties known to history, was
split up into sections. There were moderates and immoderates among them,
men to whom the name of Carlo Alberto was an oriflamme, and others to
whom it was the very signal of scorn and loathing. The count was calling
the extremists of both schools together, and Ruffiano expostulated.
“This is a time,” said the count, addressing me, “at which we must sink
all divisions. We shall find ample time to quarrel when the work is
done. In the meantime the work lies before us, and no good Italian can
hang back from it.”
“We shall do nothing but quarrel,” Ruffiano protested. “We shall be at
daggers drawn among ourselves.”
“Leave that to me,” said the count, “and do you do my bidding.”
After this there was no more question, and Quixote set off, taking his
brigand of a companion with him. The count paced the room in a sort of
silent fury for a while, but he was easily tired, and after two or three
minutes of this violent exercise he dropped, pale and panting, into an
arm-chair, and wiped the thick beads of perspiration from his forehead.
“There is no doubt about the news,” he said then; “and even if it were
not true to-day, it would be true to-morrow or the day after.”
I pointed out to him that its very likelihood should make us resolve
that our evidence was perfect before we acted on it.
“Yes, yes,” he cried, with an angry impatience; “but we must be ready
for action, and I propose no more. There is just one thing in respect
to which I have not yet taken you into confidence. I have had an
opportunity offered me of the purchase of a stock of arms. They were
made in Birmingham, at the order of one of the South American republics
which fell into bankruptcy just as the order was fulfilled. They are to
be had at a very low price, and I am inclined to buy them. I ask your
judgment on this matter on two grounds, Captain Fyffe. To begin with, it
is twenty years since I knew the world, and the fashion of arms has so
changed during that time that I am a judge no longer. I shall want you
to decide on the quality of the weapons.” I nodded assent to this, and
he went on. “The second reason is much more personal to yourself. The
cause is poor, but my daughter, in the course of a few days, will have
in her own hands a large sum of money inherited from her mother, and
increased by interest through her long minority. In round figures she
will receive something like forty thousand pounds. She proposes to offer
that sum to her father's country. You ought to know of that.”
I did not see what concern this was of mine, and I said so. Violet's
fortune, so far as I was concerned, was entirely at her own disposal.
I felt this so strongly that I did not dare to express myself quite
unreservedly, lest I might seem guilty of a pretence of too great
disinterestedness. But I added that if the money were my own, I could
think of no better way of spending it, and the count was satisfied.
He was in the very act of describing to me the weapons he proposed to
buy when a servant entered with a card.
“This is my man,” said the count, and bade the servant show the visitor
in.