“Mr. Alpheas P. Quorn” was the name printed on the card of the visitor
just announced, and I had scarcely cast my eye upon it when the man came
in. He was a prodigiously fat man, with a pigeon breast, and a neck so
short that his tufted chin was set low down between his high shoulders.
He was dressed in actual burlesque of the fashion then prevailing; but,
spruce as he was, he nursed undisguisedly a huge quid of tobacco in one
clean-shaven cheek, and his hands, which were covered with rings of no
great apparent value, were very dirty, and the nails uncared for. He
bowed with a great flourish of politeness, spat copiously in the fire,
and bade the count good-day in a thin and shrill-pitched voice, so out
of keeping with his monstrous size that I had to cough and turn away to
disguise a laugh.
“My respects, count,” said Mr. Quorn, “my respects and compliments. I
presoom, sir, you have heard the noos from the European Continent.”
“I am in pretty constant receipt of news,” the count responded, with a
swift glance in my direction; “but I do not know that it is yet common
property.”
“Wal,” said Mr. Quorn, “I'm inclined to think it is. But my folks are
pretty considerably damn smart, and so, I guess, are yours.” He paused,
looked hard at me, and turned his quid reflectively. “This gentleman--?”
he said, interrogatively.
“This gentleman,” the count responded, “is in full possession of my
confidence. This is Mr. Quorn, Captain Fyffe. I was telling Captain
Fyffe at the moment of your arrival,” he continued, “the nature of
our business. I shall rely upon his judgment of the goods you have for
sale.”
“That's all right,” said Mr. Quorn. “I've got the real thing to sell,
and I want a man as knows the real thing to see it before it's bought.
Then you're satisfied and I'm satisfied. If I ain't mistaken now,
Captain Fyffe's the man that hooked you out of that blasted Austrian
dungeon.”
“It is to Captain Fyffe,” the count answered, “that I owe my liberty.”
“Then you owe him a lot,” retorted Mr. Quorn. “There's nothing sweeter
on the face of the earth, and I presoom, sir, that you know it. I am a
foe to slavery, gentlemen, everywhere and always. In the sacred cause
of freedom I have been tarred and feathered and rode upon a rail. In
comparison with twenty years in Austrian hands that ain't a lot, but it
was more than I bargained for, and as much as I wanted. In the sacred
cause of freedom, gentlemen, I'm willing to sacrifice even a pecuniary
consideration. I could do a trade with Austria that would increase my
profits by fifty per cent. But I'm all for freedom, and you get first
offer.”
“What is your news from the Continent, Mr. Quorn?” inquired the count.
Mr. Quorn looked about him for a convenient spot, selected the
fireplace, spat again, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and
winked with a slow deliberation.
“What's yourn?” he asked. The count smiled and shook his head. “Wal,”
said Mr. Quorn, “I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I'll letter it
with you. L.”
“O,” said the count, still smiling.
“U,” said Mr. Quorn.
“I,” said the count.
“It appears to me,” said Mr. Quorn, “we're on the same trail. The
exalted individual we've got in mind, count, has done something. What's
he done now?” He rolled his big head between his fat shoulders as he put
the question, and chewed away at the great plug of tobacco in his cheek
as if he were paid to do it, and as if he were paid by piecework.
“Yes,” said the count, “he has done something, but that is a little
vague.”
“Wal, yes,” Mr. Quorn allowed, seating himself and setting both elbows
on the table, “I allow it's vague, but it won't be vague to-morrow
morning.”
“You allude,” said the count, “to the rumor that Louis Philippe has--”
“Yes, sir,” retorted Mr. Quorn, with a very bright twinkle of both eyes,
“that is the rumor I allood to. That ain't vague, captain, is it? We
both know all about it,” he went on, “and I reckon it ought to grease
this contract just a little and make it run smooth. Your time's here, if
ever it will be, and I propose we strike a bargain.”
“When can you supply the goods?” asked the count.
“Where?” asked Mr. Quorn, as if he were chopping something with a
hatchet.
“Ah,” said the count, “that has to be considered.”
“Yes,” the visitor assented, “that has to be considered. I'm for having
everything above-board. It ain't easy to handle the contrabands of war
at a time like this, when every heraldic bird and beast in Europe is on
his hind-legs and looking nine ways for Sundays. If Captain Fyffe likes
to come down with me to Blackwall I can show him something. On my side
I'm all ready, and when I know where the goods are to be landed I'll
undertake to fulfil my part of the contract. I'll leave you to yours.
Money down on delivery is the only terms. I want to know the money's
there, and you want to know the goods are there. The name of the Count
Ro-Say-No would be a sufficient guarantee for anybody in the world but a
cuss like me. I'm business. In matters of business, gentlemen,
delicacy and consideration for high-flown feelings don't enter into
my composition, not for a cent's worth. If I was trading with Queen
Victoria I should want to know where the money was coming from. Forty
thousand sterling is a lot of money, and I expect you, as a man of the
world, to excuse my curiosity.”
The count rose from his seat and rang the bell by the fireplace. A
servant answered it, and he said, simply:
“Ask Miss Rossano to be kind enough to see me here.”
The servant retired, and Mr. Quorn filled in the time of waiting by
walking about the room with his hands under his coat-tails, making a
cursory inspection of the furniture and the engravings on the walls, and
walking from time to time to the fireplace to expectorate. When Violet
entered, the count placed a seat for her, but she remained standing,
with an interrogative look from Mr. Quorn to me which seemed to ask an
explanation of that gentleman's presence.
“My dear,” said the count, “we have often spoken together of the
necessity for the purchase of arms for The Cause.”
“Yes,” she said.
“This gentleman,” the count indicated our visitor, “has arms to sell. We
have had news this morning which makes it necessary that we should move
at once.”
Her face turned pale for a moment and her lips trembled, but she spoke
an affirmatory word only, and waited.
“Mr. Quorn,” said the count, “has fifty thousand stand of arms to
dispose of.”
“I suppose this is all right,” interrupted Mr. Quorn, “but I may be
allowed to say that I have been in a business of this sort more than
once in my time, and I never knew any good come out of the introduction
of a petticoat.”
Violet looked at him, and I saw her lips twitch with an impulse towards
laughter; but Mr. Quorn obviously misunderstood the emotions he had
inspired.
“Do not suppose from that, madame,” he said, with great solemnity, “that
I have not the reverence for your sex which rules every well-regulated
masculine boozom, but this, if it means anything at all, means secrecy,
and that is not your sex's strong point.”
“That is a matter, Mr. Quorn,” returned the count, “with which, as I
think, you need not concern yourself.”
“That's all right,” returned Mr. Quorn. “I merely mentioned it. It's no
affair of mine.”
“Mr. Quorn,” said the count, “has fifty thousand stand of arms to
sell. With them he has three million percussion-caps and three million
cartridges. His price for the whole is--” he paused there and waited,
looking towards the visitor.
“Forty thousand pounds sterling,” said Mr. Quorn.
I interrupted the conversation at this point, asking when the cartridges
in question had been made. That was more than Mr. Quorn could say; but
I insisted upon an examination of their quality before any bargain with
respect to their purchase could be begun. No sportsman shoots with last
year's cartridges, and a man whose life depends upon his ammunition
should be at least as careful as a sportsman.
“Now,” said Mr. Quorn, “I like this--this is business. This comes of
talking to an expert.”
But all the same I could see that he was not over-pleased by my
interference at this point.
“We will leave that to your judgment, my dear Fyffe,” said the count.
“But in the meantime Mr. Quorn desires to be satisfied of our ability
to purchase. You have consulted your lawyer, dear, and you know at what
time you will have control of your money--”
“On the twelfth of next month,” said Violet. “I have a letter to that
effect. If this gentleman desires to see it I shall have great pleasure
in showing it to him.”
“Thank you, miss,” said Mr. Quorn. “I should feel satisfied if I could
see the document.”
Violet left the room with a furtive smile on her lips, and in a minute
or so returned with the letter, which she handed to Mr. Quorn. He
drew from his coat-pocket a spectacle-case, and took from it a pair of
gold-rimmed spectacles. He breathed on these, and polished them with his
handkerchief, and then read the letter.
“Richardson & Bowdler,” he said, tapping the paper with one bejewelled,
dirty finger, “Acre Building, Cheapside. No objection, I presoom, to
my calling on these gentlemen and ascertaining if this document is
genuine?”
“Sir,” said the count, stiffly, “the whole matter is open to your
investigation. You will take any course which seems to you to be
justified by your own interests.”
“That's above-board,” said Mr. Quorn, calmly pocketing the letter and
returning his glasses to their case. “I'll take a run down to these
folks at once, and things being satisfactory there, I'll be at Captain
Fyffe's service any minute. If you've nothing better to do this
afternoon, captain, I'll run you down to Blackwall and show you what is
to be seen.”
It was arranged that he should call for me between three and four
o'clock, and on that understanding he took his leave, retiring with many
flourishes and an assurance, specially addressed to Violet, that he was
flush on the cause of freedom anywhere and everywhere, the hull globe
over, and dead against them blasted Austrians anyhow.
“You must remember, my child,” said the count, when we three were left
alone, “that you are spending a great sum of money in this enterprise,
that it may all be wasted, and that even if by your help The Cause
should win you can never hope to see one pound of your money back
again.”
Violet had seated herself beside him at Mr. Quorn's departure, and now,
when he began to speak, she slid one arm about his neck and nestled
closely to him, with her ripe young cheek touching his grizzled and
lined old face.
“I have thought of all that, father,” she answered. “I shouldn't care
much in any case what became of the money, for I shall have plenty left.
But if it were the last penny, you and Italy would be welcome to it.”
“I know that, my dearest,” the count answered; “but all the same I could
wish it were my own. You have not yet heard to-day's news?”
“No,” she said, drawing a little away from him, in order that she might
look into his face. “What is it?”
“France is up!” he responded. “Louis Philippe has flown away, and is
either on the road here or here already.”
“And that means?” she said.
“'Instant action,” returned the count. “Action without one hour's
unnecessary delay.”
“Tell me,” she said, “exactly what it means.”
“We have called a meeting for to-night,” said the count, “and until that
is held I can tell you nothing final. But you have a right to know my
own design. We can really do nothing practical until we are armed. But I
shall propose to quit England to-morrow. I shall leave Captain Fyffe to
the negotiations with Quorn, and shall arrange for communications across
the frontier, which will enable me to judge of the best place and the
wisest hour for an attack. I shall go alone, because I wish to excite as
little notice as possible.”
“You must not go alone,” she said, and made a movement towards him with
her hands half extended. It was just such a movement as you will see a
mother make towards a child that has not quite learned to walk and is
in danger of falling. I could see the maternal instinct beaming in her
face. The beautiful girl beside this grizzled and prematurely aged man
was motherly all over, and it was a lovely and a touching thing to see.
The count saw her meaning in a second, and drew back from her with a
melancholy and affectionate smile, holding out both hands against her.
“I must go alone,” he said.
“No, no!” cried Violet, taking both his outstretched hands in hers, and
bending over him with a look of infinite protection. “My poor dear, have
you not suffered enough, and run dangers enough already? I could not
bear to be away from you.” He was about to speak, but she closed his
lips gently with the palm of her hand. “I have not been your daughter
long,” she said, with a little catch in her voice which took me at the
throat and made my heart ache with tenderness and pity for her. “I can
give you up, dear, when the time comes, but not an hour before.”
“Should I not be happy, Fyffe?” asked the count, turning to me with
tears in his eyes. “No, no, dearest, you will wait in England. I shall
leave you in safety, for I will take nothing with me--no, not a thought,
if I can help it, which would make me a coward for Italy.”
“I can give you up when the time comes,” she repeated, simply, “but not
now. I will not ask you to take me into any danger. I don't think,” she
went on, striving to make something of a jest of it, and to hide the
deeper feeling which controlled her so strongly--“I don't think that I
am fond of danger or that I should like it at all; but there is no real
reason why I should not be with you just at first.”
“Aye, yes,” cried the count, “there is every reason. I do not know where
I may have to go. I do not know how I am to live--to travel--with what
associates I must combine. My dear child, you must know the truth; my
love must venture to speak it. You would be a drag upon every step, and
with you I should not dare to face a single peril. I must go alone; I
know the hardship, but that is the task of women. They wait at home and
suffer, while the man goes out to enjoy adventure and excitement. It
was your mother's fortune, my child, and you inherit it. She was all
English, and yet she endured it for my sake. You are at least half of
Italy, and Italy has need of both of us. If Italy needs my life, she is
welcome to it. If she had need of yours, I would say not a word to hold
you back. But your place is at home. Is it not so, Fyffe?”
I was a selfish advocate enough, but he had reason on his side, and I
should have been blind indeed not to have seen it.
“It will be wiser--wiser far,” I urged, “to stay at home. To speak
plainly, you could not fail, in any sudden emergency, to hamper your
father's steps. He would be nervous about you, and anxious for your
safety.”
“But there is no need for that,” she cried, with a tender impatience. “I
am not afraid. If I were a man you should not talk to me so.”
“No,” said the count, rising and folding his arms about her. “If you
were a man, my dearest, you should have your way.”
“Oh,” she said, with a downward gesture of her clinched hands, “I
hate these thoughts about women. Why should we not have courage? Why
shouldn't we share danger with those we care about? I am not afraid of
danger. But I could keep you away from it when there was no reason for
it.”
“Violet,” said her father, gently, “I am not inclined to be rash; not
now. I have had twenty years of warning, remember.”
“Remember, poor dear!” she cried, with both arms round his neck and her
face hidden on his shoulder, “I have never forgotten for a moment since
I knew that you were alive. But don't let me be so useless. Let me do
something. Let me be near you. Don't leave me behind.”
“You do much already,” said the count, soothing her as he spoke with one
loving hand upon her flushed and tear-stained cheek. “You surrender your
father and your plighted husband, and a great slice of your fortune. Ah,
dearest, you do enough!”
“I do nothing,” she declared. “Oh, I wish I were a man!”
“So do not I,” said the count. “I should quarrel with any wish the
fulfilment of which robbed me of my daughter.”
She moved away from him gently, and dried her eyes. Her father watched
her solicitously, and by-and-by she walked to the window of the room and
said, in a tone of commonplace: “You cannot prevent me from following
you.”
“I can forbid it,” he said, in a tone of pain.
“And I can follow all the same,” she answered. He looked at her with
a glance in which I read both surprise and grief, and for a minute he
found no answer. When she moved to look at him he had turned away,
and did not see how timid and beseeching her eyes were, for all the
rebellion in her words.
“My child,” he said, “I am at a grave disadvantage. It pleased God to
part us, and to deny us even the knowledge of each other's existence. I
am still a stranger.”
“No, no, no!” she cried. She turned and ran to him, and it was plain
that an appeal couched in such terms was more than she could bear. “You
are my father,” she sobbed, “my dear, dear father! All the dearer,” she
went on, in words made half inarticulate by her tears, and all the more
expressive and affecting--“all the dearer because we never knew each
other through all those dreadful years! I love you, dear, and I am not
undutiful, and I will do whatever you ask me; but I want to be with you,
I want to be with you. I have had you for such a little time. I want
you--I want you always!”
“You must spare me to Italy,” said her father, kissing her hands and
stroking them within his own.
“Italy! What would Italy be to me if you were not a part of it?” The
Southern blood broke out there plain to see, and in her flashing eyes
and vivid face and the free gesture with which she spoke she was Italian
all over. “Do you think a girl can love a country or a name as she loves
her father? Do you think she cares about your houses and intrigues,
your Piedmonts and Savoys, your Cavours and Metterniches? I would give
everything I have to Italy, but I would give it all to Austria just as
soon if you were on her side!”
The count stood as if stricken dumb. I do not believe that this human
natural aspect of the case had ever occurred to him as being within the
broadest limits of possibility. Italy had come to mean everything in
the world to him. The word meant love, revenge, ambition, the very daily
bread and water of his heart and soul. The fate of Italy overrode,
in his mind, every personal consideration--not only for himself, but,
unconsciously, for every living creature. It was natural that it should
be so. It would have been strange, perhaps, had it been otherwise. I
could see that his daughter's outburst sounded in his ears almost like a
blasphemy. He stood wonder-struck and silent.
“If you,” he said at last, with a face as white as a ghost's, and
raising a shaking hand towards her--“if you, my daughter, the living
remembrance of my wife--if she herself were back here from her repose
in heaven--if all that ever were or could be dear to me stood on the
one side, and my country's freedom on the other, I would lose you all--I
would sacrifice you with my own hand for that great cause as willingly
as I would sacrifice myself.”
“Of course you would,” she answered, with an amazement almost equal
to his own. “What was the use of proclaiming a truth so self-evident
as that? You are a man and a patriot, and you love your country”--her
voice rang and her bosom heaved--“and you have given all the best years
of your life in suffering for her; and that is why I love and honor you.
But that is what a man could never understand. You love your cause, and
we women love you for loving it; and love it because you love it, and
we would die for it just as soon as you would. Oh, you heroic, noble,
beautiful--goose!” She rushed at him, and kissed him with a passionate
impetuosity. “And you think it's all Italy. It isn't Italy; it's you!
You're my father, and you're a hero, and a--and a--martyr, and the
noblest man that ever lived; and I love you, and I'm proud of you,
and--Italy! You're my Italy, dear!”
I know that I have not even recorded the words she spoke, well as I
fancied I remembered them. But there is no recording the manner, all
fire and passion and melting tenderness; and such a sudden sense of fun
and affection in the very middle of it all that I was within an ace of
crying at it. The count did cry, without disguise, and so did she, and
I did what I could to look as if I were not in the least moved. But when
her outburst was over, and we had all settled down again, there was no
further hint of disobedience. Violet sat down submissively on a little
footstool at the count's side, holding his hand and resting her head
against his knee while he detailed his plans, so far as they were ripe,
or speculated beyond them, looking into the possibilities of the future.
In a while, according to arrangement, Mr. Quorn returned, and this broke
up our conclave. I knew already the hour and place appointed for that
night, and the count and I agreed to meet there. 12