CHAPTER XLVII. A PROPOSAL IN FORM.

When Sir Marcus Cluff was introduced into L'Estrange's study, his first

care was to divest himself of his various “wraps,” a process not very

unlike that of the _Hamlet_ gravedigger. At length, he arrived at a

suit of entire chamois-leather, in which he stood forth like an enormous

frog, and sorely pushed the parson's gravity in consequence.

“This is what Hazeldean calls the 'chest-sufferer's true cuticle,'

Nothing like leather, my dear sir, in pulmonic affections. If I 'd have

known it earlier in life, I 'd have saved half of my left lung, which is

now hopelessly hepatized.”

L'Estrange looked compassionate, though not very well knowing what it

was he had pity for.

“Not,” added the invalid, hastily, “that even this constitutes a grave

constitutional defect. Davies says, in his second volume, that among

the robust men of England you would not find one in twenty without some

lungular derangement. He percussed me all over, and was some time before

he found out the blot.” The air of triumph in which this was said showed

L'Estrange that he too might afford to look joyful.

“So that, with this reservation, sir, I do consider I have a right to

regard myself, as Boreas pronounced me, sound as a roach.”

“I sincerely hope so.”

“You see, sir, I mean to be frank with you. I descend to no

concealments.”

It was not very easy for L'Estrange to understand this speech, or divine

what especial necessity there was for his own satisfaction as to the

condition of Sir Marcus Cluff's viscera; he, however, assented in

general terms to the high esteem he felt for candor and openness.

“No, my dear Mr. L'Estrange,” resumed he, “without this firm

conviction--a sentiment based on faith and the stethoscope together--you

had not seen me here this day.”

“The weather is certainly trying,” said L'Estrange.

“I do not allude to the weather, sir; the weather is, for the season,

remarkably fine weather; there was a mean temperature of 68° Fahrenheit

during the last twenty-four hours. I spoke of my pulmonary condition,

because I am aware people are in the habit of calling me consumptive.

It is the indiscriminating way ignorance treats a very complex question;

and when I assured you that without an honest conviction that organic

mischief had not proceeded far, I really meant what I said when I told

you you would not have seen me here this day.”

Again was the parson mystified, but he only bowed.

“Ah, sir,” sighed the other, “why will not people be always candid

and sincere? And when shall we arrive at the practice of what will

compel--actually compel sincerity? I tell you, for instance, I have an

estate worth so much--house property here, and shares in this or that

company--but there are mortgages, I don't say how much against me; I

have no need to say it. You drive down to the Registration Office and

you learn to a shilling to what extent I am liable. Why not have the

same system for physical condition, sir? Why can't you call on the

College of Physicians, or whatever the body be, and say, 'How is Sir

Marcus Cluff? I'd like to know about that right auricle of his heart.

What about his pancreas?' Don't you perceive the inestimable advantage

of what I advise?”

“I protest, sir, I scarcely follow you. I do not exactly see how I have

the right, or to what extent I am interested, to make this inquiry.”

“You amaze--you actually amaze me!” and Sir Marcus sat for some seconds

contemplating the object of his astonishment. “I come here, sir, to make

an offer for your sister's hand--”

“Pardon my interrupting, but I learn this intention only now.”

“Then you didn't read my note. You didn't read the 'turn-over.'”

“I 'm afraid not. I only saw what referred to the Church.”

“Then, sir, you missed the most important; had you taken the trouble to

turn the page, you would have seen that I ask your permission to pay

my formal attentions to Miss L'Estrange. It was with intention I first

discussed and dismissed a matter of business; I then proceeded to a

question of sentiment, premising that I held myself bound to satisfy

you regarding my property, and my pulmonary condition. Mind, body, and

estate, sir, are not coupled together ignorantly, nor inharmoniously;

as _you_ know far better than me--mind, body, and estate,” repeated he

slowly. “I am here to satisfy you on each of them.”

“Don't you think, Sir Marcus, that there are questions which should

possibly precede these?”

“Do you mean Miss L'Estrange's sentiments, sir?” George bowed, and Sir

Marcus continued: “I am vain enough to suppose I can make out a good

case for myself. I look more, but I'm only forty-eight, forty-eight

on the twelfth September. I have twenty-seven thousand pounds in bank

stock--stock, mind you--and three thousand four hundred a year in land,

Norfolk property. I have a share--we 'll not speak of it now--in a city

house; and what 's better than all, sir, not sixpence of debt in the

world. I am aware your sister can have no fortune, but I can afford

myself, what the French call a caprice, though this ain't a caprice,

for I have thought well over the matter, and I see she would suit

me perfectly. She has nice gentle ways, she can be soothing without

depression, and calm without discouragement. Ah, that is the secret of

secrets! She gave me my drops last evening with a tenderness, a graceful

sympathy, that went to my heart. I want that, sir--I need it, I yearn

for it. Simpson said to me years ago, 'Marry, Sir Marcus, marry! yours

is a temperament that requires study and intelligent care. A really

clever woman gets to know a pulse to perfection; they have a finer

sensibility, a higher organization, too, in the touch.' Simpson laid

great stress on that; but I have looked out in vain, sir. I employed

agents: I sent people abroad; I advertised in the 'Times'--M. C. was in

the second column--for above two years; and with a correspondence that

took two clerks to read through and minute. All to no end! All in vain!

They tell me that the really competent people never do reply to an

advertisement; that one must look out for them oneself, make private

personal inquiry. Well, sir, I did that, and I got into some unpleasant

scrapes with it, and two actions for breach of promise; two thousand,

pounds the last cost me, though I got my verdict, sir; the Chief Baron

very needlessly recommending me, for the future, to be cautious in

forming the acquaintance of ladies, and to avoid widows as a general

rule. These are the pleasantries of the Bench, and doubtless they amuse

the junior bar. I declare to you, sir, in all seriousness, I 'd rather

that a man should give me a fillip on the nose than take the liberty of

a joke with me. It is the one insufferable thing in life.” This sally

had so far excited him that it was some minutes ere he recovered his

self-possession. “Now, Mr. L'Estrange,” said he, at last, “I bind you in

no degree--I pledge you to nothing; I simply ask leave to address myself

to your sister. It is what lawyers call a 'motion to show cause why.'”

“I perceive that,” broke in L'Estrange; “but even that much I ought not

to concede without consulting my sister and obtaining her consent. You

will allow me therefore time.”

“Time, sir! My nerves must not be agitated. There can be no delays.

It was not without a great demand on my courage, and a strong dose of

chlorodine--Japps's preparation--that I made this effort now. Don't

imagine I can sustain it much longer. No, sir, I cannot give time.”

“After all, Sir Marcus, you can scarcely suppose that my sister is

prepared for such a proposition.”

“Sir, they are always prepared for it. It never takes them unawares. I

have made them my study for years, and I do think I have some knowledge

of their way of thinking and acting. I 'll lay my life on it, if you

will go and say, 'Maria'--”

“My sister's name is Julia,” said the other, dryly.

“It may be, sir--I said 'Maria' generically, and I repeat it--'Maria,

there is in my study at this moment a gentleman, of irreproachable

morals and unblemished constitution, whose fortune is sufficiently ample

to secure many comforts and all absolute necessaries, who desires to

make you his wife;' her first exclamation will be, 'It is Sir Marcus

Cluff.'”

“It is not impossible,” said L'Estrange, gravely.

“The rest, sir, is not with you, nor even with me. Do me, then, the

great favor to bear my message.”

Although seeing the absurdity of the situation, and vaguely forecasting

the way Julia might possibly hear the proposition, L'Estrange was always

so much disposed to yield to the earnestness of any one who persisted in

a demand, that he bowed and left the room.

“Well, George, he has proposed?” cried Julia, as her brother entered the

room, where she sat with Nelly Bramleigh.

He nodded only, and the two girls burst out into a merry laugh.

“Come, come, Julia,” said he, reprovingly. “Absurd as it may seem, the

man is in earnest, and must be treated with consideration.”

“But tell us the whole scene. Let us have it all as it occurred.”

“I 'll do nothing of the kind. It 's quite enough to say that he

declares he has a good fortune, and wishes to share it with you; and I

think the expression of that wish should secure him a certain deference

and respect.”

“But who refuses, who thinks of refusing him all the deference and

respect he could ask for? Not I, certainly. Come now, like a dear good

boy, let us hear all he said, and what you replied. I suspect there

never was a better bit of real-life comedy. I only wish I could have had

a part in it.”

“Not too late yet, perhaps,” said Nelly, with a dry humor. “The fifth

act is only beginning.”

“That is precisely what I am meditating. George will not tell me

accurately what took place in his interview, and I think I could not do

better than go and learn Sir Marcus' sentiments for myself.”

She arose and appeared about to leave the room, when L'Estrange sprang

towards the door, and stood with his back against it.

“You 're not serious, Ju?” cried he, in amazement.

“I should say very serious. If Sir Marcus only makes out his case, as

favorably as you, with all your bungling, can't help representing it,

why--all things considered, eh, Nelly? _you_, I know, agree with me--I

rather suspect the proposition might be entertained.”

“Oh, this is too monstrous. It is beyond all belief,” cried L'Estrange.

And he rushed from the room in a torrent of passion, while Julia sank

back in a chair, and laughed till her eyes ran over with tears of

merriment.

“How could you, Julia! Oh, how could you!” said Nelly, as she leaned

over her and tried to look reproachful.

“If you mean, how could I help quizzing him, I can understand you; but

I could not--no, Nelly, I could not help it! It is my habit to seize

on the absurd side of any embarrassment; and you may be sure there

is always one if you only look for it; and you 've no idea how

much pleasanter--ay, and easier, too--it is to laugh oneself out of

difficulties than to grieve over them. You 'll see George, now, will be

spirited up, out of pure fright, to do what he ought; to tell this

man that his proposal is an absurdity, and that young women, even as

destitute of fortune as myself, do not marry as nursetenders. There! I

declare that is Sir Marcus driving away already. Only think with what

equanimity I can see wealth and title taking leave of me. Never say

after that that I have not courage.”

CHAPTER XLVII. “A TELEGRAM”

“This is a very eventful day for me, George,” said Augustus, as they

strolled through the garden after breakfast. “The trial was fixed for

the 13th, and to-day is the 14th; I suppose the verdict will be given

to-day.”

“But you have really no doubt of the result? I mean, no more than

anxiety on so momentous a matter must suggest?”

“Pardon me. I have grave doubts. There was such a marriage, as is

alleged, formed by my grandfather; a marriage in every respect legal.

They may not have the same means of proving that which we have; but we

know it. There was a son born to that marriage. We have the letter

of old Lami, asking my grandfather to come over to Bruges for the

christening, and we have the receipt of Hodges and Smart, the jewellers,

for a silver gilt ewer and cup which were engraved with the Bramleigh

crest and cypher, and despatched to Belgium as a present; for my

grandfather did not go himself, pretexting something or other, which

evidently gave offence; for Lami's next letter declares that the

present has been returned, and expresses a haughty indignation at my

grandfather's conduct I can vouch for all this. It was a sad morning

when I first saw those papers; but I did see them, George, and they

exist still. That son of my grandfather's they declare to have married,

and his son is this Pracontal. There is the whole story, and if the

latter part of the narrative be only as truthful as I believe the first

to be, he, and not I, is the rightful owner of Castello.”

L'Estrange made no reply; he was slowly going over in his mind the chain

of connection, and examining, link by link, how it held together.

“But why,” asked he at length, “was not this claim preferred before? Why

did a whole generation suffer it to lie dormant?”

“That is easily--too easily explained. Lami was compromised in almost

every country in Europe; and his son succeeded him in his love of plot

and conspiracy. Letters occasionally reached my father from this latter;

some of them demanding money in a tone of actual menace. A confidential

clerk, who knew all my father's secrets, and whom he trusted most

implicitly, became one day a defaulter, and absconded, carrying with him

a quantity of private papers, some of which were letters written by

my father, and containing remittances which Montague Lami,--or Louis

Langrange, or whatever other name he bore,--of course, never received,

and indignantly declared he believed had never been despatched. This

clerk, whose name was Hesketh, made Lami's acquaintance in South

America, and evidently encouraged him to prefer his claim with greater

assurance, and led him to suppose that any terms he preferred must

certainly be complied with! But I cannot go on, George; the thought of

my poor father struggling through life in this dark conflict rises up

before me, and now I estimate the terrible alternation of hope and fear

in which he must have lived, and how despairingly he must have thought

of a future, when this deep game should be left to such weak hands as

mine. I thought they were cruel words once, in which he spoke of

my unfitness to meet a great emergency--but now I read them very

differently.”

“Then do you really think he regarded this claim as rightful and just?”

“I cannot tell that; at moments I have leaned to this impression; but

many things dispose me to believe that he saw or suspected some flaw

that invalidated the claim, but still induced him to silence the

pretension by hush money.”

“And you yourself--”

“Don't ask me, my dear friend; do not ask me the question I see is on

your lips. I have no courage to confess, even to you, through how many

moods I pass every day I live. At moments I hope and firmly believe I

rise above every low and interested sentiment, and determine I will do

as I would be done by; I will go through this trial as though it were

a matter apart from me, and in which truth and justice were my only

objects. There are hours in which I feel equal to any sacrifice, and

could say to this man:--There! take it; take all we have in the world.

We have no right to be here; we are beggars and outcasts. And then--I

can't tell how or why--it actually seems as if there was a real Tempter

in one's nature, lying in wait for the moment of doubt and hesitation;

but suddenly, quick as a flash of lightning, a thought would dart

across my mind, and I would begin to canvass this and question that;

not fairly, not honestly, mark you, but casuistically and cunningly; and

worse, far worse than all this--actually hoping, no matter on which side

lay the right, that _we_ should come out victorious.”

“But have you not prejudiced your case by precipitancy? They tell me

that you have given the others immense advantage by your openly declared

doubts as to your title.”

“That is possible. I will not deny that I may have acted imprudently.

The compromise to which I at first agreed struck me, on reflection,

as so ignoble and dishonorable, that I rushed just as rashly into the

opposite extreme. I felt, in fact, George, as though I owed this man a

reparation for having ever thought of stifling his claim; and I carried

this sentiment so far that Sedley asked me one day, in a scornful tone,

what ill my family had done me, I was so bent on ruining them? Oh, my

dear friend, if it be a great relief to me to open my heart to you, it

is with shame I confess that I cannot tell you truthfully how weak and

unable I often feel to keep straight in the path I have assigned myself.

How, when some doubt of this man's right shoots across me, I hail the

hesitation like a blessing from heaven. What I would do, what I would

endure that he could not show his claim to be true, I dare not own. I

have tried to reverse our positions in my own mind, and imagine I was

he; but I cannot pursue the thought, for whenever the dread final rises

before me, and I picture to myself our ruin and destitution, I can but

think of him, as a deadly implacable enemy. This sacrifice, then, that I

purpose to make with a pure spirit and a high honor, is too much for me.

I have not courage for that I am doing; but I'll do it still!”

L'Estrange did his utmost to rally him out of his depression, assuring

him that, as the world went, few men would have attempted to do what he

had determined on, and frankly owning, that in talking over the matter

with Julia, they were both disposed to regard his conduct as verging on

Quixotism.

“And that is exactly the best thing people will say of it. I am lucky

if they will even speak so favorably.”

“What's this,--a telegram?” cried L'Estrange, as the servant handed him

one of those square-shaped missives, so charged with destiny that one

really does not know whether to bless or curse the invention, which,

annihilating space, brings us so quickly face to face with fortune.

“Read it, George; I cannot,” muttered Bramleigh, as he stood against a

tree for support.

[Illustration: 438]

“Ten o'clock. Court-house, Navan. Jury just come out--cannot agree to

verdict--discharged. New trial. I write post.

“Sedley.”

“Thank heaven, there is at least a respite,” said Bramleigh; and he fell

on the other's shoulder, and hid his face.

“Bear up, my poor fellow. You see that, at all events, nothing has

happened up to this. Here are the girls coming. Let them not see you in

such emotion.”

“Come away, then; come away. I can't meet them now; or do you go and

tell Nelly what this news is--she has seen the messenger, I 'm sure.”

L'Estrange met Nelly and Julia in the walk, while Augustus hastened

away in another direction. “There has been no verdict. Sedley sends

his message from the court-house this morning, and says the jury cannot

agree, and there will be another trial.”

“Is that bad or good news?” asked Nelly, eagerly.

“I'd say good,” replied he; “at least, when I compare it with your

brother's desponding tone this morning. I never saw him so low.”

“Oh, he is almost always so of late. The coming here and the pleasure of

meeting you rallied him for a moment, but I foresaw his depression would

return. I believe it is the uncertainty, the never-ceasing terror of

what next, is breaking him down; and if the blow fell at once, you would

see him behave courageously and nobly.”

“He ought to get away from this as soon as possible,” said L'Estrange.

“He met several acquaintances yesterday in Rome, and they teased him

to come to them, and worried him to tell where he was stopping. In his

present humor he could not go into society, but he is ashamed to his own

heart to admit it.”

“Then why don't we go at once?” cried Julia.

“There's nothing to detain us here,” said L'Estrange, sorrowfully.

“Unless you mean to wait for my marriage,” said Julia, laughing,

“though, possibly, Sir Marcus may not give me another chance.”

“Oh, Julia!”

“'Oh, Julia!' Well, dearest, I do say shocking things, there 's no doubt

of it; but when I 've said them, I feel the subject off my conscience,

and revert to it no more.”

“At all events,” said L'Estrange, after a moment of thought, “let us

behave when we meet him as though this news was not bad. I know he will

try to read in our faces what we think of it, and on every account it is

better not to let him sink into depression.”

The day passed over in that discomfort which a false position so

inevitably imposes. The apparent calm was a torture, and the efforts at

gayety were but moments of actual pain. The sense of something impending

was so poignant that at every stir--the opening of a door or the sound

of a bell--there came over each a look of anxiety the most intense and

eager. All their attempts at conversation were attended with a fear lest

some unhappy expression, some ill-timed allusion might suggest the very

thought they were struggling to suppress; and it was with a feeling of

relief they parted and said good-night, where, at other times, there had

been only regret at separating.

Day after day passed in the same forced and false tranquillity, the

preparations for the approaching journey being the only relief to the

intense anxiety that weighed like a load on each. At length, on the

fifth morning, there came a letter to Augustus in the well-known hand

of Sedley, and he hastened to his room to read it. Some sharp passages

there had been between them of late on the subject of the compromise,

and Bramleigh, in a moment of forgetfulness and anger, even went so

far as to threaten that he would have recourse to the law to determine

whether his agent had or had not overstepped the bounds of his

authority, and engaged in arrangements at total variance to all his

wishes and instructions. A calm but somewhat indignant reply from

Sedley, however, recalled Bramleigh to reconsider his words, and even

ask pardon for them, and since that day their intercourse had been more

cordial and frank than ever. The present letter was very long, and

quite plainly written, with a strong sense of the nature of him it was

addressed to. For Sedley well knew the temper of the man,--his moods of

high resolve and his moments of discouragement,--his desire to be equal

to a great effort, and his terrible consciousness that his courage could

not be relied on. The letter began thus:--

My dear Sir,--If I cannot, as I hoped, announce a victory, I am able

at least to say that we have not been defeated. The case was fairly and

dispassionately stated, and probably an issue of like importance was

never discussed with less of acrimony, or less of that captious and

overreaching spirit which is too common in legal contests. This was so

remarkable as to induce the judge to comment on it in his charge, and

declare that in all his experience on the bench, he had never before

witnessed anything so gratifying or so creditable alike to plaintiff and

defendant.

Lawson led for the other side, and, I will own, made one of the best

openings I ever listened to, disclaiming at once any wish to appeal to

sympathies or excite feeling of pity for misfortunes carried on through

three generations of blameless sufferers; he simply directed the jury

to follow him in the details of a brief and not very complicated story,

every step of which he would confirm and establish by evidence.

The studious simplicity of his narrative was immense art, and though he

carefully avoided even a word that could be called high-flown, he made

the story of Montague Bramleigh's courtship of the beautiful Italian

girl one of the most touching episodes I ever listened to.

The marriage was, of course, the foundation of the whole claim, and he

arrayed all his proofs of it with great skill. The recognition in your

grandfather's letters, and the tone of affection in which they were

written, his continual reference to her in his life, left little if any

doubt on the minds of the jury, even though there was nothing formal or

official to show that the ceremony of marriage had passed; he reminded

the jury that the defence would rely greatly on this fact, but the

fact of a missing registry-book was neither so new nor so rare in this

country as to create any astonishment, and when he offered proof that

the church and the vestry-room had been sacked by the rebels in '98, the

evidence seemed almost superfluous. The birth and baptism of the child

he established thoroughly; and here he stood on strong grounds, for

the infant was christened at Brussels by the Protestant chaplain of the

Legation at the Hague, and he produced a copy of the act of registry,

stating the child to be son of Montague Bramleigh, of Cossenden Manor,

and Grosvenor Square, London, and of Enrichetta his wife. Indeed, as

Lawson declared, if these unhappy foreigners had ever even a glimmering

suspicion that the just rights of this poor child were to be assailed

and his inheritance denied him, they could not have taken more careful

and cautious steps to secure his succession than the simple but

excellent precautions they had adopted.

The indignation of Lami at what he deemed the unfeeling and heartless

conduct of Montague Bramleigh--his cold reception of the news of his

son's birth, and the careless tone in which he excused himself from

going over to the christening--rose to such a pitch that he swore the

boy should never bear his father's name, nor ever in any way be beholden

to him, and “this rash oath it was that has carried misery down to

another generation, and involved in misfortune others not more blameless

nor more truly to be pitied than he who now seeks redress at your

hands.” This was the last sentence he uttered after speaking three

hours, and obtaining a slight pause to recruit his strength.

Issue of Montague Bramleigh being proved, issue of that issue was also

established, and your father's letters were given in evidence to show

how he had treated with these claimants and given largely in money to

suppress or silence their demands. Thos. Bolton, of the house of Parker

and Bolton, bankers, Naples, proved the receipt of various sums

from Montague Bramleigh in favor of A. B. C, for so the claimant was

designated, private confidential letters to Bolton showing that these

initials were used to indicate one who went under many aliases, and

needed every precaution to escape the police. Bolton proved the journal

of Giacomo Lami, which he had often had in his own possession. In

fact this witness damaged us more than all the rest; his station and

position in life, and the mode in which he behaved under examination,

having great effect on the jury, and affording Lawson a favorable

opportunity of showing what confidence was felt in the claimant's

pretensions by a man of wealth and character, even when the

complications of political conspiracy had served to exhibit him as a

dangerous adventurer.

Waller's reply was able, but not equal to his best efforts. It is but

fair to him, however, to state that he complained of our instructions,

and declared that your determination not to urge anything on a point of

law, nor tender opposition on grounds merely technical, left him almost

powerless in the case. He devoted his attention almost entirely to

disprove the first marriage, that of Mr. B. with Enrichetta Lami;

he declared that, the relative rank of the parties considered, the

situation in which they were placed towards each other, and all the

probabilities of the case duly weighed, there was every reason to

believe the connection was illicit. This view was greatly strengthened

by Mr. B.'s subsequent conduct; his refusal to go over to the

christening, and the utter indifference he displayed to the almost

menacing tone of old Lami's letters; and when he indignantly asked the

jury “if a man were likely to treat in this manner his wife and the

mother of his first-born, the heir to his vast fortune and estates,”

there was a subdued murmur in the court that showed how strongly this

point had told.

He argued that when a case broke down at its very outset, it would be

a mere trifling with the time of the court to go further to disprove

circumstances based on a fallacy. As to the christening and the

registration of baptism, what easier than for a woman to declare

whatever she pleased as to the paternity of her child? It was true he

was written son of Montague Bramleigh: but when we once agree that there

was no marriage, this declaration has no value. He barely touched on the

correspondence and the transmission of money abroad, which he explained

as the natural effort of a man of high station and character to suppress

the notoriety of a youthful indiscretion. Political animosity had, at

that period, taken a most injurious turn, and scandal was ransacked to

afford means of attack on the reputations of public men.

I barely give you the outline of his argument, but I will send you the

printed account of the trial as soon as the shorthand writer shall have

completed it for press. Baron Jocelyn's charge was, I must say, less

in our favor than I had expected; and when he told the jury that the

expressions of attachment and affection in Mr. B.'s letters, and the

reiterated use of the phrase “my dear, dear wife,” demanded their

serious consideration as to whether such words would have fallen from a

man hampered by an illicit connection, and already speculating how to be

free of it; all this, put with great force and clearness, and a certain

appeal to their sense of humanity, did us much disservice. The length

of time he dwelt on this part of the case was so remarkable, that I

overheard a Q. C. say he had not known till then that his Lordship was

retained for the plaintiff.

When he came to that part where allusion was made to the fact of the

claimant being a foreigner, he made an eloquent and effective appeal to

the character of English justice, which elicited a burst of applause in

the court that took some seconds to repress; but this, I am told, was

more owing to the popular sympathy with the politics of old Lami, and

his connection with the rebellion of '98, than with any enthusiasm for

his Lordship's oratory.

The jury were three hours in deliberation. I am confidentially informed

that we had but five with, and seven against us; the verdict, as you

know, was not agreed on. We shall go to trial in spring, I hope with

Holmes to lead for us, for I am fully persuaded the flaw lies in the

history subsequent to the marriage of Mr. B., and that it was a mistake

to let the issue turn on the event which had already enlisted the

sympathies of the jury in its favor.

In conclusion, I ought to say, that the plaintiff's friends regard the

result as a victory, and the national press is strong in asserting that,

if the Orange element had been eliminated from the jury-box, there is

little doubt that Count Bramleigh--as they call him--would at that hour

be dispensing the splendid hospitalities of a princely house to his

county neighbors, and the still more gratifying benefits of a wide

charity to the poor around him. Writing rapidly, as I do, I make no

pretension to anything like an accurate history of the case. There are

a vast variety of things to which I mean to direct your attention when

a more favorable moment will permit. I will only now add, that your

presence in England is urgently required, and that your return to

Castello, to resume there the style of living that alike becomes the

proprietor and the place, is, in the opinion of all your friends, much

to be desired.

Mr. Waller does not hesitate to say that your absence decided the case

against you, and was heard to declare openly that “he for one had no

fancy to defend a cause for a man who voluntarily gave himself up as

beaten.”

May I entreat, then, you will make it your convenience to return here?

I cannot exaggerate the ill effects of your absence, nor to what extent

your enemies are enabled to use the circumstance to your discredit.

Jurors are, after all, but men, taken from the common mass of those who

read and talk over the public scandals of the hour, and all the cautions

of the Bench never yet succeeded in making men forget, within the

court-house, what they had for weeks before been discussing outside of

it.

At all events, do not dismiss my suggestion without some thought over

it, or better still, without consulting some friends in whose sense

and intelligence you have confidence. I am, with many apologies for the

liberty I have thus taken,

Most faithfully your servant,

T. Sedley.

When Bramleigh had read this letter carefully over, he proceeded to

Nelly's room, to let her hear its contents.

“It's not very cheery news,” said he, “but it might be worse. Shall I

read it for you, or will you read it yourself?”

“Read it, Gusty; I would rather hear it from you,” said she, as she sat

down with her face to the window, and partially averted from him as he

sat.

Not a word dropped from her while he read; and though once or twice he

paused as if to invite a remark or a question, she never spoke, nor by a

look or a gesture denoted how the tidings affected her.

“Well,” asked he at last, “what do you say to it all?”

“It's worse--I mean worse for us--than I had ever suspected! Surely,

Gusty, _you_ had no conception that their case had such apparent

strength and solidity?”

“I have thought so for many a day,” said he, gloomily.

“Thought that they, and not we--” she could not go on.

“Just so, dearest,” said he, drawing his chair to her side, and laying

his hand affectionately on her shoulder.

“And do you believe that poor papa thought so?” said she, and her eyes

now swam in tears.

A scarcely perceptible nod was all his answer.

“Oh, Gusty, this is more misery than I was prepared for!” cried she,

throwing herself on his shoulder. “To think that all the time we

were--what many called--outraging the world with display; exhibiting our

wealth in every ostentatious way; to think that it was not ours, that we

were mere pretenders, with a mock rank, a mock station.”

“My father did not go thus far, Nelly,” said he, gravely. “That he did

not despise these pretensions I firmly believe; but that they ever gave

him serious reason to suppose his right could be successfully disputed,

this I do not believe. His fear was, that when the claim came to be

resisted by one like myself, the battle would be ill fought. It was in

this spirit he said, 'Would that Marion had been a boy! '”

“And what will you do, Gusty?”

“I 'll tell you what I will not do, Nelly,” said he, firmly. “I will

not, as this letter counsels me, go back to live where it is possible

I have no right to live, nor spend money to which the law may to-morrow

declare I have no claim. I will abide by what that law shall declare,

without one effort to bias it in my favor. I have a higher pride in

submitting myself to this trial than ever I had in being the owner of

Castello. It may be that I shall not prove equal to what I propose to

myself. I have no over-confidence in my own strength, but I like to

think, that if I come well through the ordeal, I shall have done what

will dignify a life, humble even as mine, and give me a self-respect

without which existence is valueless to me. Will you stand by me, Nelly,

in this struggle--I shall need you much?”

“To the last,” said she, giving him both her hands, which he grasped

within his, and pressed affectionately.

“Write, then, one line from me to Sedley, to say that I entrust the case

entirely to his guidance; that I will not mix myself with it in any way,

nor will I return to England till it be decided; and say, if you

can, that you agree with me in this determination. And then, if the

L'Estranges are ready, let us start at once.”

“They only wait for us; Julia said so this morning.”

“Then we shall set out to-morrow.”

CHAPTER XLIX. A LONG TÊTE-À-TÊTE

“Scant courtesy, I must say,” exclaimed Lady Augusta, as, after rapidly

running her eyes over a note, she flung it across the table towards

Pracontal.

They were seated tête-à-tête in that small drawing-room which looked out

upon the garden and the grounds of the Borghese Palace.

“Am I to read it?” asked he.

“Yes, if you like. It is from Augustus Bramleigh, a person you feel some

interest in.”

Pracontal took up the note, and seemed to go very carefully over its

contents.

“So then,” said he, as he finished, “he thinks it better not to

meet--not to know me.”

“Which is no reason on earth for being wanting in a proper attention

to me,” said she, angrily. “To leave Rome without calling here, without

consulting my wishes, and learning my intentions for the future, is a

gross forgetfulness of proper respect.”

“I take it, the news of the trial was too much for him. Longworth said

it would, and that the comments of the press would be insupportable

besides.”

“But what have I to do with that, sir? Mr. Bramleigh's first duty was

to come here. _I_ should have been thought of. _I_ was the first person

this family should have remembered in their hour of difficulty.”

“There was no intentional want of respect in it, I 'll be bound,” cried

Pracontal. “It was just a bashful man's dread of an awkward moment--that

English terror of what you call a 'scene'--that sent him off.”

“It is generous of you, sir, to become his apologist. I only wonder--”

Here she stopped and seemed confused.

“Go on, my Lady. Pray finish what you began.”

“No, sir. It is as well unsaid.”

“But it was understood, my Lady, just as well as if it had been uttered.

Your Ladyship wondered who was to apologize for _me_.”

She grew crimson as he spoke; but a faint smile seemed to say how

thoroughly she relished that southern keenness that could divine a

half-uttered thought.

“How quick you are!” said she, without a trace of irritation.

“Say, rather, how quick he ought to be who attempts to parry _you_ at

fence. And, after all,” said he, in a lighter tone, “is it not as well

that he has spared us all an embarrassment? _I_ could not surely have

been able to condole with _him_, and how could he have congratulated

_me?_”

“Pardon me, Count, but the matter, so far as I learn, is precisely as

it was before. There is neither subject for condolence nor gratulation.”

“So far as the verdict of the jury went, my Lady, you are quite right;

but what do you say to that larger, wider verdict pronounced by the

press, and repeated in a thousand forms by the public? May I read you

one passage, only one, from my lawyer Mr. Kelson's letter?”

“Is it short?”

“Very short.”

“And intelligible?”

“Most intelligible.”

“Read it, then.”

“Here it is,” said he, opening a letter, and turning to the last page.

“'Were I to sum up what is the popular opinion of the result, I could

not do it better than repeat what a City capitalist said to me this

morning: “I'd rather lend Count Pracontal twenty thousand pounds to-day,

than take Mr. Bramleigh's mortgage for ten.”'”

“Let me read that. I shall comprehend his meaning better than by hearing

it. This means evidently,” said she, after reading the passage, “that

your chances are better than his.”

“Kelson tells me success is certain.”

“And your cautious friend Mr.------; I always forget that man's name?”

“Longworth?”

“Yes, Longworth. What does he say?”

“He is already in treaty with me to let him have a small farm which

adjoins his grounds, and which he would like to throw into his lawn.”

“Seriously?”

“No, not a bit seriously; but we pass the whole morning building these

sort of castles in Spain, and the grave way that he entertains such

projects ends by making me believe I am actually the owner of Castello

and all its belongings.”

“Tell me some of your plans,” said she, with a livelier interest than

she had yet shown.

“First of all, reconciliation, if that be its proper name, with all

that calls itself Bramleigh. I don't want to be deemed a usurper, but a

legitimate monarch. It is to be a restoration.”

“Then you ought to marry Nelly. I declare, that never struck me

before.”

“Nor has it yet occurred to me, my Lady,” said he, with a faint show of

irritation.

“And why not, sir? Is it that you look higher?”

“I look higher,” said he; and there was a solemn intensity in his air

and manner as he spoke.

“I declare, Monsieur de Pracontal, it is scarcely delicate to say this

to _me_.”

“Your Ladyship insists on my being candid, even at the hazard of my

courtesy.”

“I do not complain of your candor, sir. It is your--your--”

“My pretension?”

“Well, yes, pretension will do.”

“Well, my Lady, I will not quarrel with the phrase. I do 'pretend,'

as we say in French. In fact, I have been little other than a pretender

these last few years.”

“And what is it you pretend to? May I ask the question?”

“I do not know if I may dare to answer it,” said he, slowly.... “I will

explain what I mean,” added he, after a brief silence, and drawing his

chair somewhat nearer to where she sat. “I will explain. If, in one

of my imaginative gossipries with a friend, I were to put forward some

claim--some ambition--which would sound absurd coming from me _now_, but

which, were I the owner of a great estate, would neither be extravagant

nor ridiculous, the memory of that unlucky pretension would live against

me ever after, and the laugh that my vanity excited would ring in my

ears long after I had ceased to regard the sentiment as vanity at all.

Do you follow me?”

“Yes, I believe I do. I would only have you remember that I am not Mr.

Longworth.”

“A reason the more for my caution.”

“Could n't we converse without riddles, Count Pracontal?”

“I protest, I should like to do so.”

“And as I make no objection--”

“Then to begin. You asked me what I should do if I were to gain my

suit; and my answer is, if I were not morally certain to gain it, I 'd

never exhibit myself in the absurd position of planning a life I was

never to arrive at.”

“You are too much a Frenchman for that.”

“Precisely, madame. I am too much a Frenchman for that. The exquisite

sensibility to ridicule puts a very fine edge on national character,

though your countrymen will not admit it.”

“It makes very tetchy acquaintances,” said she, with a malicious laugh.

“And develops charming generosity in those who forgive us!”

“I cry off. I can't keep up this game of give and take flatteries. Let

us come back to what we were talking of,--that is, if either of us

can remember it. Oh, yes, I know it now. You were going to tell me the

splendid establishment you 'd keep at Castello. I 'm sure the cook will

leave nothing to desire,--but how about the stable? That 'steppere' will

not exactly be in his place in an Irish county.”

“Madame, you forget I was a lieutenant of hussars.”

“My dear Count, that does not mean riding.”

“Madame!”

“I should now rise and say 'Monsieur!' and it would be very good comedy

after the French pattern; but I prefer the sofa and my ease, and will

simply beg you to remember the contract we made the other day,--that

each was to be at liberty to say any impertinence to the other, without

offence being taken.”

Pracontal laid his hand on his heart, and bowed low and deep.

“There are some half a dozen people in that garden yonder, who have

passed and repassed--I can't tell how many times--just to observe us.

You 'll see them again in a few minutes, and we shall be town-talk

to-morrow, I 'm certain. There are no _tête-à-têtes_ ever permitted in

Rome if a cardinal or a monsignore be not one of the performers.”

“Are those they?” cried he, suddenly.

“Yes, and there 's not the least occasion for that flash of the eye and

that hot glow of indignation on the cheek: I assure you, monsieur, there

is nobody there to _couper la gorge_ with you, or share in any of those

social pleasantries which make the 'Bois' famous. The curiously minded

individual is a lady,--a Mrs. Trumpler,--and her attendants are a few

freshly arrived curates. There, now, sit down again, and look less like

a wounded tiger; for all this sort of thing fusses and fevers me. Yes,

you may fan me; though if the detectives return it will make the report

more highly colored.”

Pracontal was now seated on a low stool beside her sofa, and fanning her

assiduously.

“Not but these people are all right,” continued she. “It is quite wrong

in me to admit you to my intimacy--wrong to admit you at all. My sister

is so angry about it she won't come here--fact, I assure you. Now don't

look so delighted and so triumphant, and the rest of it. As your nice

little phrase has it, you 'are for nothing' in the matter at all. It is

all myself, my own whim, my fancy, my caprice. _I_ saw that the step

was just as unadvisable as they said it was. I saw that any commonly

discreet person would not have even made your acquaintance, standing

as I did; but unfortunately for me, like poor Eve, the only tree whose

fruit I covet is the one I 'm told is n't good for me. There go our

friends once more. I wish I could tell her who you are, and not keep her

in this state of torturing anxiety.”

“Might I ask, my Lady,” said he, gravely, “if you have heard anything to

my discredit or disparagement, as a reason for the severe sentence you

have just spoken?”

“No, unfortunately not; for in that case my relatives would have

forgiven me. They know the wonderful infatuation that attracts me to

damaged reputations, and as they have not yet found out any considerable

flaw in yours, they are puzzled, out of all measure, to know what it is

I see in you.”

“I am overwhelmed by your flattery, madam,” said he, trying to seem

amused; but, in spite of himself, showing some irritation.

“Not that,” resumed she, in that quiet manner which showed that her

mind had gone off suddenly in another direction,--“not that I owe much

deference to the Bramleighs, who, one and all, have treated me with

little courtesy. Marion behaved shamefully; that, of course, was to be

expected. To marry that odious old creature for a position implied how

she would abuse the position when she got it. As I said to Gusty, when

a young Oxford man gives five guineas for a mount, he does n't think he

has the worth of his money if he does n't smash his collar-bone. There,

put down that fan; you are making me feverish. Then the absurdity of

playing _peeress to me!_ How ashamed the poor old man was; he reddened

through all his rouge. Do you know,” added she, in an excited manner,

“that she had the impertinence to compare her marriage with mine, and

say that at least rank and title were somewhat nobler ambitions than a

mere subsistence and a settlement. But I answered her. I told her,

'You have forgotten one material circumstance. I did not live with your

father!' Oh, yes! we exchanged a number of little courtesies of this

kind, and I was so sorry when I heard she had gone to Naples. I was only

getting into stride when the race was over. As to my settlement, I have

not the very vaguest notion who 'll pay it; perhaps it may be _you_.

Oh, of course I know the unutterable bliss; but you must really ask your

lawyer, how is my lien to be disposed of. Some one said to me the other

day that, besides the estate, you would have a claim for about eighty

thousand pounds.”

“It was Longworth said so.”

“I don't like your friend Longworth. Is he a gentleman?”

“Most unquestionably.”

“Well, but I mean a born gentleman? I detest, and I distrust your

nature-made gentlemen, who, having money enough to 'get up' the part,

deem that quite sufficient. I want the people whose families have given

guarantees for character during some generations. Six o'clock! only

think, you are here three mortal hours! I declare, sir, this must not

occur again; and I have to dress now. I dine at the Prince Cornarini's.

Do you go there?”

“I go nowhere, my Lady. I know no one.”

“Well, I can't present you. It would be too compromising. And yet they

want men like you, very much, here. The Romans are so dull and stately,

and the English who frequent the best houses are so dreary. There, go

away now. You want leave to come to-morrow, but I 'll not grant it. I

must hear what Mrs. Trumpler says before I admit you again.”

“When, then, may I--”

“I don't know; I have not thought of it. Let it be--let it be when

you have gained your lawsuit,” cried she, in a burst of laughter, and

hurried out of the room.

CHAPTER L. CATTARO.

If Cattaro was more picturesque and strange-looking than the Bramleighs

had expected, it was also far more poverty-stricken and desolate. The

little town, escarped out of a lofty mountain, with the sea in front,

consisted of little more than one straggling street, which followed

every bend and indentation of the shore. It is true, wherever a little

plateau offered on the mountain, a house was built; and to these small

winding paths led up, through rocks bristling with the cactus, or shaded

by oleanders large as olive-trees. Beautiful little bits of old Venetian

architecture, in balconies or porticos, peeped out here and there

through the dark foliage of oranges and figs; and richly ornamented

gates, whose arabesques yet glistened with tarnished gilding, were

festooned with many a flowery creeper, and that small banksia-rose,

so tasteful in its luxuriance. From the sea it would be impossible

to imagine anything more beautiful or more romantic. As you landed,

however, the illusion faded, and dirt, misery, and want stared at you

at every step. Decay and ruin were on all sides. Palaces, whose marble

mouldings and architraves were in the richest style of Byzantine art,

were propped up by rude beams of timber that obstructed the footway,

while from their windows and balconies hung rags and tattered draperies,

the signs of a poverty within great as the ruin without. The streets

were lined with a famished, half-clothed population, sitting idly or

sleeping. A few here and there affected to be vendors of fruit and

vegetables; but the mass were simply loungers reduced to the miserable

condition of an apathy which saw nothing better to be done with life

than dream it away. While Bramleigh and L'Estrange were full of horror

at the wretchedness of the place, their sisters were almost wild with

delight at its barbaric beauty, its grand savagery, and its brilliantly

picturesque character. The little inn, which probably for years had

dispensed no other hospitalities than those of the _café_, that extended

from the darkly columned portico to half across the piazza, certainly

contributed slightly to allay the grumblings of the travellers. The

poorly furnished rooms were ill kept and dirty, the servants lazy, and

the fare itself the very humblest imaginable.

Nothing short of the unfailing good temper and good spirits of Julia

and Nelly could have rallied the men out of their sulky discontent; that

spirit to make the best of everything, to catch at every passing gleam

of sunlight on the landscape, and even in moments of discouragement

to rally at the first chance of what may cheer and gladden,--this is

womanly, essentially womanly. It belongs not to the man's nature; and

even if he should have it, he has it in a less discriminative shape and

in a coarser fashion.

While Augustus and L'Estrange then sat sulkily smoking their cigars

on the sea-wall, contemptuously turning their backs on the mountain

variegated with every hue of foliage, and broken in every picturesque

form, the girls had found out a beautiful old villa, almost buried in

orange-trees in a small cleft of the mountain, through which a small

cascade descended and fed a fountain that played in the hall; the

perfect stillness, only broken by the splash of the falling water, and

the sense of delicious freshness imparted by the crystal circles eddying

across the marble fount, so delighted them that they were in ecstasies

when they found that the place was to be let, and might be their own for

a sum less than a very modest “entresol” would cost in a cognate city.

“Just imagine, Gusty, he will let it to us for three hundred florins a

year; and for eighteen hundred we may buy it out and out, forever.” This

was Nelly's salutation as she came back, full of all she had seen, and

glowing with enthusiasm over the splendid luxuriance of the vegetation

and the beauty of the view.

“It is really princely inside, although in terrible dilapidation and

ruin. There are over two of the fireplaces the Doge's arms, which shows

that a Venetian magnate once lived there.”

“What do you say, George?” cried Bramleigh. “Don't you think you 'd

rather invest some hundred florins in a boat to escape from this dreary

hole than purchase a prison to live in?”

“You must come and see the 'Fontanella'--so they call it--before you

decide,” said Julia. “Meanwhile here is a rough sketch I made from the

garden side.”

“Come, that looks very pretty, indeed,” cried George. “Do you mean to

say it is like that?”

“That's downright beautiful!” said Bramleigh. “Surely these are not

marble,--these columns!”

“It is all marble,--the terrace, the balconies, the stairs, the

door-frames; and as to the floors, they are laid down in variegated

slabs, with a marvellous instinct as to color and effect. I declare I

think it handsomer than Castello,” cried Nelly.

“Have n't I often said,” exclaimed Bramleigh, “there was nothing like

being ruined to impart a fresh zest to existence? You seem to start anew

in the race, and unweighted, too.”

“As George and I have always been in the condition you speak of,” said

Julia, “this charm of novelty is lost to us.”

“Let us put it to the vote,” said Nelly, eagerly. “Shall we buy it?”

“First of all, let us see it,” interposed Bramleigh. “Today I have to

make my visit to the authorities. I have to present myself before the

great officials, and announce that I have come to be the representative

of the last joint of the British lion's tail; but that he, being a great

beast of wonderful strength and terrific courage, to touch a hair of him

is temerity itself.”

“And they will believe you?” asked Julia.

“Of course, they will. It would be very hard that we should not

survive in the memories of people who live in lonely spots, and read no

newspapers.”

“Such a place for vegetation I never saw,” cried Nelly. “There are

no glass windows in the hall, but through the ornamental ironwork the

oranges and limes pierce through and hang in great clusters; the whole

covered with the crimson acanthus and the blue japonica, till the very

brilliancy of color actually dazzles you.”

“We 'll write a great book up there, George,--'Cattaro under the Doges:'

or shall it be a romance?” said Bramleigh.

“I 'm for a diary,” said Julia, “where each of us shall contribute his

share of life among the wild-olives.”

“Ju's right,” cried Nelly; “and as I have no gift of authorship, I'll be

the public.”

“No, you shall be the editor, dearest,” said Julia. “He is always like

the Speaker in the House,--the person who does the least, and endures

the most.”

“All this does not lead us to any decision,” said L'Estrange. “Shall

I go up there all alone, and report to you this evening what I see and

what I think of the place?”

This proposal was at once acceded to; and now they went their several

ways, not to meet again till a late dinner.

“How nobly and manfully your brother bears up!” said Julia, as she

walked back to the inn with Nelly.

“And there is no display in it,” said Nelly, warmly. “Now that he is

beyond the reach of condolence and compassion, he fears nothing. And you

will see that when the blow falls, as he says it must, he will not wince

nor shrink.”

“If I had been a man I should like to have been of that mould.”

“And it is exactly what you would have been, dear Julia. Gusty said,

only yesterday, that you had more courage than us all.”

When L'Estrange returned, he came accompanied by an old man in very

tattered clothes, and the worst possible hat, whose linen was far from

spotless, as were his hands innocent of soap. He was, however, the owner

of the villa, and a Count of the great family of Kreptowicz. If his

appearance was not much in his favor, his manners were those of a

well-bred person, and his language that of education. He was eager

to part with this villa, as he desired to go and live with a married

daughter at Ragusa; and he protested that, at the price he asked, it was

not a sale, but a present; that to any other than Englishmen he never

would part with a property that had been six hundred years in the

family, and which contained the bones of his distinguished ancestors,

of which, incidentally, he threw in small historic details; and, last of

all, he avowed that he desired to confide the small chapel where these

precious remains were deposited to the care of men of station and

character. This chapel was only used once a year, when a mass for the

dead was celebrated, so that the Count insisted no inconvenience could

be incurred by the tenant. Indeed, he half hinted that, if that one

annual celebration were objected to, his ancestors might be prayed for

elsewhere, or even rest satisfied with the long course of devotion to

their interests which had been maintained up to the present time. As for

the chapel itself, he described it as a gem that even Venice could not

rival. There were frescos of marvellous beauty, and some carvings in

wood and ivory that were priceless. Some years back he had employed a

great artist to restore some of the paintings, and supply the place

of others that were beyond restoration; and now it was in a state of

perfect condition, as he would be proud to show them.

“You are aware that we are heretics, monsieur?” said Julia.

“We are all sons of Adam, mademoiselle,” said he, with a polite bow; and

it was clear that he could postpone spiritual questions to such time as

temporal matters might be fully completed.

As the chapel was fully twenty minutes' walk from the villa, and much

higher on the mountain side, had it even been frequented by the

country people it could not have been any cause of inconvenience to the

occupants of the villa; and this matter being settled, and some small

conditions as to surrender being agreed to, Bramleigh engaged to take it

for three years, with a power to purchase if he desired it.

Long after the contract was signed and completed, the old Count

continued, in a half-complaining tone, to dwell on the great sacrifice

he had made, what sums of money were to be made of the lemons and

oranges, how the figs were celebrated even at Ragusa, and Fontanella

melons had actually brought ten kreutzers--three-halfpence--apiece in

the market at Zara.

“Who is it,” cried Julia, as the old man took his leave, “who said that

the old mercantile spirit never died out in the great Venetian families,

and that the descendants of the doges, with all their pride of blood and

race, were dealers and traders whenever an occasion of gain presented

itself?”

“Our old friend there has not belied the theory,” said Bramleigh; “but I

am right glad that we have secured La Fontanella.”

CHAPTER LI. SOME NEWS FROM WITHOUT

There is a sad significance in the fact that the happiest days of our

lives are those most difficult to chronicle; it is as though the very

essence of enjoyment was its uneventful nature. Thus was it that the

little household at the Fontanels felt their present existence. Its

simple pleasures, its peacefulness never palled upon them. There was

that amount of general similarity in tastes amongst them that secures

concord, and that variety of disposition and temperament which promotes

and sustains interest.

Julia was the life of all; for, though seeming to devote herself to the

cares of housethrift and management, and in reality carrying on all the

details of management, it was she who gave to their daily life its color

and flavor, she who suggested occupations and interest to each;

and while Augustus was charged to devote his gun and his rod to the

replenishment of the larder, George was converted into a gardener; all

the decorative department of the household being confided to Nelly,

who made the bouquets for the breakfast and dinner tables, arranged the

fruit in artistic fashion, and was supreme in exacting dinner-dress and

the due observance of all proper etiquette. Julia was inflexible on this

point; for, as she said, “though people laugh at deposed princes for

their persistence in maintaining a certain state and a certain pageantry

in their exile, without these, what becomes of their prestige, and what

becomes of themselves? they merge into a new existence, and lose their

very identity. We, too, may be 'restored' one of these days, and let it

be our care not to have forgotten the habits of our station.” There was

in this, as in most she said, a semi-seriousness that made one doubt

when she was in earnest; and this half-quizzing manner enabled her

to carry out her will and bear down opposition in many cases where a

sterner logic would have failed her.

Her greatest art of all, however, was to induce the others to believe

that the chief charm of their present existence was its isolation. She

well knew that while she herself and Nelly would never complain of the

loneliness of their lives, their estrangement from the world and all

its pursuits, its pleasures and its interests, the young men would soon

discover what monotony marked their days, how uneventful they were, and

how uniform. To convert all these into merits, to make them believe that

this immunity from the passing accidents of life was the greatest of

blessings, to induce them to regard the peace in which they lived as

the highest charm that could adorn existence, and at the same time not

suffer them to lapse into dreamy inactivity or lethargic indifference,

was a great trial of skill, and it was hers to achieve it. As she said,

not without a touch of vainglory, one day to Nelly, “How intensely eager

I have made them about small things. Your brother was up at daylight to

finish his rock-work for the creepers, and George felled that tree for

the keel of his new boat before breakfast. Think of that, Nelly; and

neither of them as much as asked if the post had brought them letters

and newspapers. Don't laugh, dearest. When men forget the post-hour,

there is something wonderfully good or bad has befallen them.”

“But it is strange, after all, Ju, how little we have come to care for

the outer world. I protest I am glad to think that there are only two

mails a week,--a thing that when we came here, I would have pronounced

unendurable.”

“To George and myself it matters little,” said Julia; and her tone had a

touch of sadness in it, in spite of her attempt to smile. “It would not

be easy to find two people whom the world can live without at so little

cost. There is something in that, Nelly; though I 'm not sure that it is

all gain.”

“Well, you have your recompense, Julia,” said the other, affectionately;

“for there is a little 'world' here could not exist without you.”

“Two hares, and something like a black cock--they call it a caper,

here,” cried Augustus, from beneath the window. “Come down, and let us

have breakfast on the terrace. By the way, I have just got a letter in

Cutbill's hand. It has been a fortnight in coming, but I only glanced at

the date of it.”

As they gathered around the breakfast-table they were far more eager to

learn what had been done in the garden, and what progress was being made

with the fish-pond, than to hear Mr. Cutbill's news; and his letter lay

open till nigh the end of the meal, on the table, before any one thought

of it.

“Who wants to read Cutbill?” said Augustus, indolently.

“Not I, Gusty, if he writes as he talks.”

“Do you know, I thought him very pleasant?” said L'Estrange. “He told me

so much that I had never heard of, and made such acute remarks on life

and people.”

“Poor dear George was so flattered by Mr. Cutbill's praise of his boiled

mutton, that he took quite a liking to the man; and when he declared

that some poor little wine we gave him had a flavor of 'muscat' about

it, like old Moselle, I really believe he might have borrowed money of

us if he had wanted, and if we had had any.”

“I wish you would read him aloud, Julia,” said Augustus.

“With all my heart,” said she, turning over the letter to see its

length. “It does seem a long document, but it is a marvel of clear

writing. Now for it. 'Naples, Hotel Victoria. My dear Bramleigh.' Of

course you are his dear Bramleigh? Lucky, after all, that it's not dear

Gusty.”

“That's exactly what makes everything about that man intolerable to

_me_,” said Nelly. “The degree of intimacy between people is not to be

measured by the inferior.”

“I will have no discussions, no interruptions,” said Julia. “If there

are to be comments, they must be made by _me_.”

“That's tyranny, I think,” cried Nelly.

“I call it more than arrogance,” said Augustus.

“My dear Bramleigh,” continued Julia, reading aloud, “I followed the old

Viscount down here, not in the best of tempers, I assure you; and though

not easily outwitted or baffled in such matters, it was not till after a

week that I succeeded in getting an audience. There's no denying it,

he 's the best actor on or off the boards in Europe. He met me coldly,

haughtily. I had treated him badly, forsooth, shamefully; I had not

deigned a reply to any of his letters. He had written me three--he was

n't sure there were not four letters--to Rome. He had sent me cards for

the Pope's chapel--cards for Cardinal Somebody's receptions--cards for

a concert at St. Paul's, outside the walls. I don't know what attentions

he had not showered on me, nor how many of his high and titled friends

had not called at a hotel where I never stopped, or left their names

with a porter I never saw. I had to wait till he poured forth all this

with a grand eloquence, at once disdainful and damaging; the peroration

being in this wise--that such lapses as mine were things unknown in the

latitudes inhabited by well-bred people. 'These things are not done, Mr.

Cutbill,' said he, arrogantly; 'these things are not done! You may call

them trivial omissions, mere trifles, casual forgetfulness, and such

like; but even men who have achieved distinction, who have won fame and

honors and reputation, as I am well aware is your case, would do well to

observe the small obligations which the discipline of society enforces,

and condescend to exchange that small coin of civilities which form the

circulating medium of good manners.' When he had delivered himself of

this he sat down overpowered; and though I, in very plain language, told

him that I did not believe a syllable about the letters, nor accept one

word of the lesson, he only fanned himself and bathed his temples with

rose-water, no more heeding me or my indignation than if I had been one

of the figures on his Japanese screen.

“'You certainly said you were stopping at the “Minerva,”' said he.

“'I certainly told your Lordship I was at Spilman's.'

“He wanted to show me why this could not possibly be the case--how

men like himself never made mistakes, and men like me continually did

so--that the very essence of great men's lives was to attach importance

to those smaller circumstances that inferior people disregarded, and so

on; but I simply said, 'Let us leave that question where it is, and go

on to a more important one. Have you had time to look over my account?'

“'If you had received the second of those letters you have with such

unfeigned candor assured me were never written, you'd have seen that I

only desire to know the name of your banker in town, that I may order my

agent to remit the money.'

“'Let us make no more mistakes about an address, my Lord,' said I. 'I

'll take a check for the amount now,' and he gave it. He sat down and

wrote me an order on Hedges and Holt, Pall Mall, for fifteen hundred

pounds.

“I was so overcome by the promptitude and by the grand manner he

handed it to me, that I am free to confess I was heartily ashamed of my

previous rudeness, and would have given a handsome discount off my check

to have been able to obliterate all memory of my insolence.

“'Is there anything more between us, Mr. Cutbill?' said he, politely;

'for I think it would be a mutual benefit if we could settle all our

outlying transactions at the present interview.'

“'Well,' said I, 'there 's that two thousand of the parson's, paid in,

if you remember, after Portlaw's report to your Lordship that the whole

scheme must founder.'

“He tried to browbeat at this. It was a matter in which I had no

concern; it was a question which Mr. L'Estrange was at full liberty

to bring before the courts of law; my statement about Portlaw was

incorrect; dates were against me, law was against me, custom was against

me, and at last it was nigh dinner-hour, and time was against me;

'unless,' said he, with a change of voice I never heard equalled off

the stage, 'you will stay and eat a very humble dinner with Temple and

myself, for my Lady is indisposed.'

“To be almost on fighting terms with a man ten minutes ago, and to

accept his invitation to dinner now, seemed to me one of those things

perfectly beyond human accomplishment; but the way in which he tendered

the invitation, and the altered tone he imparted to his manner, made me

feel that not to imitate him was to stamp myself forever as one of those

vulgar dogs whom he had just been ridiculing, and I assented.

“I have a perfect recollection of a superb dinner; but beyond that,

and that the champagne was decanted, and that there was a large cheese

stuffed with truffles, and that there were ortolans in ice, I know

nothing. It was one of the pleasantest evenings I ever passed in my

life. I sang several songs, and might have sung more if a message

had not come from my Lady to beg that the piano might be stopped,--an

intimation which closed the _seance_; and I said good-night. The next

morning Temple called to say my Lord was too much engaged to be able to

receive me again; and as to that little matter I had mentioned, he had

an arrangement to propose which might be satisfactory. And whether

it was that my faculties were not the clearer for my previous night's

convivialities, or that Temple's explanations were of the most muddled

description, or that the noble lord had purposely given him a tangled

skein to unravel, I don't know; but all I could make out of the proposed

arrangement was that he would n't give any money back,--no, not on any

terms: to do so would be something so derogatory to himself, to his

rank, to his position in diplomacy, it would amount to a self-accusation

of fraud; what would be thought of him by his brother peers, by society,

by the world, and by The Office?

“He had, however, the alternate presentation to the living of Oxington

in Herts. It was two hundred and forty pounds per annum and a house,--in

fact, 'a provision more than ample,' he said, 'for any man not utterly

a worldling.' He was not sure whether the next appointment lay with

himself or a certain Sir Marcus Cluff,--a retired fishmonger, he

thought,--then living at Rome; but as well as I could make out, if

it was Lord Culduff's turn he would appoint L'Estrange, and if it was

Cluff's we were to cajole, or to bully, or to persuade him out of it;

and L'Estrange was to be inducted as soon as the present incumbent, who

only wanted a few months of ninety, was promoted to a better place. This

may all seem very confused, dim, and unintelligible, but it is a plain

ungarbled statement in comparison with what I received from Temple,

who, to do him justice, felt all the awkwardness of being sent out to

do something he did n't understand by means that he never possessed. He

handed me, however, a letter for Cluff from the noble Viscount, which I

was to deliver at once; and, in fact, this much was intelligible, that

the sooner I took myself away from Naples, in any direction I liked

best, the better. There are times when it is as well not to show that

you see the enemy is cheating you, when the shrewdest policy is to let

him deem you a dupe and wait patiently till he has compromised himself

beyond recall. In this sense I agreed to be the bearer of the letter,

and started the same night for Rome.

“Cluff was installed at the same hotel where I was stopping, and I saw

him the next morning. He was a poor broken-down creature, sitting in a

room saturated with some peculiar vapor which seemed to agree with him,

but half suffocated me. The Viscount's letter, however, very nearly put

us on a level, for it took his breath away, and all but finished him.

“'Do you know, sir,' said he, 'that Lord Culduff talks here of a title

to a presentation that I bought with the estate thirty years ago, and

that he has no more right in the matter than he has to the manor-house.

The vicarage is my sole gift, and though the present incumbent is

but two-and-thirty, he means to resign and go out to New Zealand.' He

maundered on about Lord Culduff's inexplicable blunder; what course

he ought to adopt towards him; if it were actionable, or if a simple

apology would be the best solution, and at last said, 'There was no one

for whom he had a higher esteem than Mr. L'Estrange, and that if I would

give him his address he would like to communicate with him personally

in the matter.' This looked at least favorable, and I gave it with great

willingness; but I am free to own I have become now so accustomed to be

jockeyed at every step I go, that I would n't trust the Pope himself, if

he promised me anything beyond his blessing.

“I saw Cluff again to-day, and he said he had half-written his letter to

L'Estrange; but being his postfumigation day, when his doctor enjoined

complete repose, he could not complete or post the document till

Saturday. I have thought it best, however, to apprise you, and

L'Estrange through you, that such a letter is on its way to Cattaro,

and, I trust, with satisfactory intelligence. And now that I must bring

this long narrative to an end, I scarcely know whether I shall repeat a

scandal you may have heard already, or, more probably still, not like

to hear now; but it is the town-talk here,--that Pracontal, or Count

Bramleigh--I don't know which name he is best known by--is to marry

Lady Augusta. Some say that the marriage will depend on the verdict of

the trial being in his favor; others declare that she has accepted him

unconditionally. I was not disposed to believe the story, but Cluff

assures me that it is unquestionable, and that he knows a lady to whom

Lady Augusta confided this determination. And, as Cluff says, such

an opportunity of shocking the world will not occur every day, and it

cannot be expected she could resist the temptation.

“I am going back to England at once, and I enclose you my town address

in case you want me: '4, Joy Court, Cannon Street' The Culduff mining

scheme is now wound up, and the shareholders have signed a consent.

Their first dividend of fourpence will be paid in January, future

payment will be announced by notice. Tell L'Estrange, however, not to

'come in,' but to wait.

“If I can be of service in any way, make use of me, and if I cannot,

don't forget me, but think of me as, what I once overheard L'Estrange's

sister call me,--a well-meaning snob, and very faithfully yours,

“T. Cutbill.”

CHAPTER LII. ISCHIA.

The sun had just sunk below the horizon, and a blaze of blended crimson

and gold spread over the Bay of Naples, coloring the rocky island of

Ischia till it glowed like a carbuncle. Gradually, however, the rich

warm tints began to fade away from the base of the mountains, and a cold

blue color stole slowly up their sides, peak after peak surrendering

their gorgeous panoply, till at length the whole island assumed a tinge

blue as the sea it stood in.

But for the memory of the former glory it would have been difficult to

imagine a more beautiful picture. Every cliff and jutting promontory

tufted with wild olives and myrtle was reflected in the waveless sea

below; and feathery palm-trees and broad-leaved figs trembled in the

water, as that gentle wash eddied softly round the rocks, or played on

the golden shore.

It was essentially the hour of peace and repose. Along the shores of

the bay, in every little village, the angelus was ringing, and kneeling

groups were bowed in prayer; and even here, on this rocky islet, where

crime and wretchedness were sent to expiate by years of misery their

sins against their fellow-men, the poor galley-slaves caught one instant

of kindred with the world, and were suffered to taste in peace the

beauty of the hour. There they were in little knots and groups--some

lying listlessly in the deep grass; some gathered on a little rocky

point, watching the fish as they darted to and fro in the limpid water,

and doubtless envying their glorious freedom: and others, again, seated

under some spreading tree, and seeming, at least, to feel the calm

influence of the hour.

The soldiers who formed their guard had piled their arms, leaving here

and there merely a sentinel, and had gone down amongst the rocks, to

search for limpets, or those rugged “ricci di mare” which humble palates

accept as delicacies. A few, too, dashed in for a swim, and their joyous

voices and merry laughter were heard amid the plash of the water they

disported in.

In a small cleft of a rock overshadowed by an old ilex-tree two men sat

moodily gazing on the sea. In dress they were indeed alike, for

both wore that terrible red and yellow livery that marks a life-long

condemnation, and each carried the heavy chain of the same terrible

sentence. They were linked together at the ankle, and thus, for

convenience' sake, they sat shoulder to shoulder. One was a thin, spare,

but still wiry-looking man, evidently far advanced in life, but with a

vigor in his look and a quick intelligence in his eye that showed

what energy he must have possessed in youth. He had spent years at the

galleys, but neither time nor the degradation of his associations had

completely eradicated the traces of something above the common in his

appearance; for No. 97--he had no other name as a prisoner--had been

condemned for his share in a plot against the life of the king; three of

his associates having been beheaded for their greater criminality.

What station he might originally have belonged to was no longer easy to

determine; but there were yet some signs that indicated that he had been

at least in the middle rank of life. His companion was unlike him in

every way. He was a young man with fresh complexion and large blue eyes,

the very type of frankness and good-nature. Not even prison diet and

discipline had yet hollowed his cheek, though it was easy to see that

unaccustomed labor and distasteful food were beginning to tell upon

his strength, and the bitter smile with which he was gazing on his lank

figure and wasted hands showed the weary misery that was consuming him.

“Well, old Nick,” said the young man at length, “this is to be our last

evening together; and if ever I should touch land again, is there any

way I could help you--is there anything I could do for you?”

“So then you're determined to try it?” said the other, in a low growling

tone.

“That I am. I have not spent weeks filing through that confounded chain

for nothing: one wrench now and it's smashed.”

“And then?” asked the old man with a grin.

“And then I'll have a swim for it. I know all that--I know it all,”

said he, answering a gesture of the other's hand; “but do you think I

care to drag out such a life as this?”

“_I_ do,” was the quiet reply.

“Then why you do is clear and clean beyond me. To me it is worse than

fifty deaths.”

“Look here, lad,” said the old man, with a degree of animation he had

not shown before. “There are four hundred and eighty of us here: some

for ten, some for twenty years, some for life; except yourself alone

there is not one has the faintest chance of a pardon. You are English,

and your nation takes trouble about its people, and, right or wrong, in

the end gets them favorable treatment, and yet you are the only man here

would put his life in jeopardy on so poor a chance.”

“I 'll try it, for all that.”

“Did you ever hear of a man that escaped by swimming?”

“If they did n't it was their own fault--at least, they gave themselves

no fair chance: they always made for the shore, and generally the

nearest shore, and of course they were followed and taken. I'll

strike out for the open sea, and when I have cut the cork floats off a

fishing-net, I'll be able to float for hours, if I should tire swimming.

Once in the open, it will be hard luck if some coasting vessel, some

steamer to Palermo or Messina, should not pick me up. Besides, there are

numbers of fishing-boats--”

“Any one of which would be right glad to make five ducats by bringing

you safe back to the police.”

“I don't believe it--I don't believe there is that much baseness in a

human heart.”

“Take my word for it, there are depths a good deal below even that,”

said the old man, with a harsh grating laugh.

“No matter, come what will of it, I'll make the venture; and now, as our

time is growing short, tell me if there is anything I can do for you, if

I live to get free again. Have you any friends who could help you? or is

there any one to whom you would wish me to go on your behalf?”

“None--none,” said he, slowly but calmly.

“As yours was a political crime--”

“I have done all of them, and if my life were to be drawn out for eighty

years longer it would not suffice for all the sentences against me.”

“Still I 'd not despair of doing something--”

“Look here, lad,” said the other, sharply; “it is my will that all who

belong to me should believe me dead. I was shipwrecked twelve years ago,

and reported to have gone down with all the crew. My son--”

“Have you a son, then?”

“My son inherits rights that, stained as I am by crime and

condemnation, I never could have maintained. Whether he shall make them

good or not will depend on whether he has more or less of _my_ blood

in his veins. It may be, however, he will want money to prosecute his

claim. I have none to send him, but I could tell him where he is almost

certain to find not only money, but what will serve him more than money,

if you could make him out. I have written some of the names he is known

by on this paper, and he can be traced through Bolton, the banker at

Naples. Tell him to seek out all the places old Giacomo Lami worked at.

He never painted his daughter Enrichetta in a fresco, that he didn't

hide gold, or jewels, or papers of value somewhere near. Tell him, above

all, to find out where Giacomo's last work was executed. You can say

that you got this commission from me years ago in Monte Video; and

when you tell him it was Niccolo Baldassare gave it, he'll believe you.

There. I have written Giacomo Lami on that paper, so that you need not

trust to your memory. But why do I waste time with these things? You'll

never set foot on shore, lad--never.”

“I am just as certain that I shall. If that son of yours was only as

certain of winning his estate, I'd call him a lucky fellow. But see,

they are almost dressed. They 'll be soon ready to march us home. Rest

your foot next this rock till I smash the link, and when you see them

coming roll this heavy stone down into the sea. I 'll make for the south

side of the island, and, once night falls, take to the water. Good-bye,

old fellow. I 'll not forget you--never, never,” and he wrung the old

man's hand in a strong grasp. The chain gave way at the second blow, and

he was gone.

Just as the last flickering light was fading from the sky, three cannon

shots, in quick succession, announced that a prisoner had made his

escape, and patrols issued forth in every direction to scour the island,

while boats were manned to search the caves and crevasses along the

shore.

The morning's telegram to the Minister of Police ran thus: “No. 11 made

his escape last evening, filing his ankle-iron. The prisoner, 97, to

whom he was linked, declares that he saw him leap into the sea and sink.

This statement is not believed; but up to this, no trace of the missing

man has been discovered.”

In the afternoon of the same day, Temple Bramleigh learned the news, and

hastened home to the hotel to inform his chief. Lord Culduff was not in

the best of tempers. Some independent member below the gangway had

given notice of a question he intended to ask the Secretary for Foreign

Affairs, and the leader of a Radical morning paper had thus paraphrased

the inquiry: “What Mr. Bechell wishes to ascertain, in fact, amounts

to this,--'Could not the case of Samuel Rogers have been treated by our

resident envoy at Naples, or was it necessary that the dignity and honor

of England should be maintained by an essenced old fop, whose social

successes--and we never heard that he had any other--date from the early

days of the Regency?'”

Lord Culduff was pacing his room angrily when Temple entered, and,

although nothing would have induced him to show the insolent paragraph

of the paper, he burst out into a violent abuse of those meddlesome

Radicals, whose whole mission in life was to assail men of family and

station.

“In the famous revolution of France, sir,” cried he, “they did their

work with the guillotine; but our cowardly canaille never rise above

defamation. You must write to the papers about this, Temple. You must

expose this system of social assassination, or the day will come, if it

has not already come, when gentlemen of birth and blood will refuse to

serve the Crown.”

“I came back to tell you that our man has made his escape,” said

Temple, half trembling at daring to interrupt this flow of indignation.

“And whom do you call our man, sir?” “I mean Rogers--the fellow we have

been writing about.”

“How and when has this happened?”

Temple proceeded to repeat what he had learned at the prefecture of the

police, and read out the words of the telegram.

“Let us see,” said Lord Culduff, seating himself in a well-cushioned

chair. “Let us see what new turn this will give the affair. He may be

recaptured, or he may be, most probably is, drowned. We then come in for

compensation. They must indemnify. There are few claims so thoroughly

chronic in their character as those for an indemnity. You first discuss

the right, and you then higgle over the arithmetic. I don't want to go

back to town this season. See to it then, Temple, that we reserve this

question entirely to ourselves. Let Blagden refer everything to us.”

“They have sent the news home already.”

“Oh! they have. Very sharp practice. Not peculiar for any extreme

delicacy either. But I cannot dine with Blagden, for all that. This

escape gives a curious turn to the whole affair. Let us look into it a

little. I take it the fellow must have gone down--eh?”

“Most probably.”

“Or he might have been picked up by some passing steamer or by a

fishing-boat. Suppose him to have got free, he 'll get back to England,

and make capital out of the adventure. These fellows understand all that

nowadays.”

Temple, seeing a reply was expected, assented.

“So that we must not be precipitate, Temple,” said Lord Culduff,

slowly. “It's a case for caution.”

These words, and the keen look that accompanied them, were perfect

puzzles to Temple, and he did not dare to speak.

“The thing must be done this wise,” said Lord Culduff. “It must be a

'private and confidential' to the office, and a 'sly and ambiguous' to

the public prints. I 'll charge myself with the former; the latter shall

be your care, Temple. You are intimate with Flosser, the correspondent

of the 'Bell-Weather.' Have him to dinner and be indiscreet. This old

Madeira here will explain any amount of expansiveness. Get him to talk

of this escape, and let out the secret that it was we who managed it

all. Mind, however, that you swear him not to reveal anything. It would

be your ruin, you must say, if the affair got wind; but the fact was

Lord Culduff saw the Neapolitans were determined not to surrender him,

and knowing what an insult it would be to the public feeling of England

that an Englishman was held as a prisoner at the galleys, for an act of

heroism and gallantry, the only course was to liberate him at any cost

and in any way. Flosser will swear secrecy, but hints at this solution

as the _on dit_ in certain keen coteries. Such a mode of treating the

matter carries more real weight than a sworn affidavit. Men like the

problem that they fancy they have unravelled by their own acuteness.

And then it muzzles discussion in the House, since even the most blatant

Radical sees that it cannot be debated openly; for all Englishmen, as a

rule, love compensation, and we can only claim indemnification here on

the assumption that we were no parties to the escape. Do you follow me,

Temple?”

“I believe I do. I see the drift of it at last.”

“There's no drift, sir. It is a full, palpable, well-delivered blow. We

saved Rogers; but we refuse to explain how.”

“And if he turns up one of these days, and refuses to confirm us?”

“Then we denounce him as an impostor; but always, mark you, in the same

shadowy way that we allude to our share in his evasion. It must be

a sketch in water-colors throughout, Temple,--very faint and very

transparent. When I have rough-drafted my despatch you shall see it.

Once the original melody is before you, you will see there is nothing to

do but invent the variations.”

“My Lady wishes to know, my Lord, if your Lordship will step upstairs

to speak to her?” said a servant at this conjuncture.

“Go up, Temple, and see what it is,” whispered Lord Culduff. “If it be

about that box at the St. Carlos, you can say our stay here is now most

uncertain. If it be a budget question, she must wait till quarter-day.”

He smiled maliciously as he spoke, and waved his hand to dismiss him.

Within a minute--it seemed scarcely half that time--Lady Culduff entered

the room, with an open letter in her hand; her color was high, and her

eyes flashing, as she said:--

“Make your mind at ease, my Lord. It is no question of an opera-box, or

a milliner's bill, but it is a matter of much importance that I desire,

to speak about. Will you do me the favor to read that, and say what

answer I shall return to it?”

Lord Culduff took the letter and read it over leisurely, and then,

laying it down, said, “Lady Augusta is not a very perspicuous

letter-writer, or else she feels her present task too much for her tact,

but what she means here is, that you should give M. Pracontal permission

to ransack your brother's house for documents, which, if discovered,

might deprive him of the title to his estate. The request, at least, has

modesty to recommend it.”

“The absurdity is, to my thinking, greater than even the impertinence,”

cried Lady Culduff. “She says, that on separating two pages, which by

some accident had adhered, of Giacomo Lami's journal,--whoever Giacomo

Lami may be,--_we_--_we_ being Pracontal and herself--have discovered

that it was Giacomo's habit to conceal important papers in the walls

where he painted, and in all cases where he introduced his daughter's

portrait; and that as in the octagon room at Castello there is a picture

of her as Flora, it is believed--confidently believed--such documents

will be found there as will throw great light on the present claim--”

“First of all,” said he, interrupting, “is there such a portrait?”

“There is a Flora; I never heard it was a portrait. Who could tell after

what the artist copied it?”

“Lady Augusta assumes to believe this story.”

“Lady Augusta is only too glad to believe what everybody else would

pronounce incredible; but this is not all, she has the inconceivable

impertinence to prefer this request to us, to make us a party to our own

detriment,--as if it were matter of perfect indifference who possessed

these estates, and who owned Castello.”

“I declare I have heard sentiments from your brother Augustus that would

fully warrant this impression. I have a letter of his in my desk wherein

he distinctly says, that once satisfied in his own mind--not to the

conviction of his lawyer, mark you, nor to the conviction of men well

versed in evidence, and accustomed to sift testimony, but simply in his

own not very capacious intellect--that the estate belongs to Pracontal,

he 'll yield him up the possession without dispute or delay.”

“He's a fool! there is no other name for him,” said she, passionately.

“Yes, and his folly is very mischievous folly, for he is abrogating

rights he has no pretension to deal with. It is as well, at all events,

that this demand was addressed to us and not to your brother, for I'm

certain he'd not have refused his permission.”

“I know it,” said she, fiercely; “and if Lady Augusta only knew his

address and how a letter might reach him, she would never have written

to us. Time pressed, however; see what she says here. 'The case will

come on for trial in November, and if the papers have the value and

significance Count Pracontal's lawyers suspect, there will yet be time

to make some arrangement,--the Count would be disposed for a generous

one,--which might lessen the blow, and diminish the evil consequences of

a verdict certain to be adverse to the present possessor.'”

“She dissevers her interests from those of her late husband's family

with great magnanimity, I must say.”

“The horrid woman is going to marry Pracontal.”

“They say so, but I doubt it--at least, till he comes out a victor.”

“How she could have dared to write this, how she could have had the

shamelessness to ask me,--_me_ whom she certainly ought to know,--to aid

and abet a plot directed against the estates--the very legitimacy of my

family--is more than I can conceive.”

“She 's an implicit believer, one must admit, for she says, 'if on

examining the part of the wall behind the pedestal of the figure nothing

shall be found, she desires no further search.' The spot is indicated

with such exactness in the journal that she limits her request

distinctly to this.”

“Probably she thought the destruction of a costly fresco might well

have been demurred to,” said Lady Culduff, angrily. “Not but, for

my part, I 'd equally refuse her leave to touch the moulding in the

surbase. I am glad, however, she has addressed this demand to us, for I

know well Augustus is weak enough to comply with it, and fancy himself

a hero in consequence. There is something piquant in the way she hints

that she is asking as a favor what, for all she knows, might be claimed

as a right. Imagine a woman saying this!”

“It is like asking me for the key of my writing-desk to see if I have

not some paper or letter there, that might, if published, give me grave

inconvenience.”

“I have often heard of her eccentricities and absurdities, but on this

occasion I believe she has actually outdone herself. I suppose, though

this appeal is made to us conjointly, as it is addressed to me, I am the

proper person to reply to it.”

“Certainly, my Lady.”

“And I may say--Lord Culduff feels shocked equally with myself at the

indelicacy of the step you have just taken; failing to respect the tie

which connects you with our family, you might, he opines, have had some

regard for the decencies which regulate social intercourse, and while

bearing our name, not have ranked yourself with those who declare

themselves our enemies. I may say this, I may tell her that her conduct

is shameless, an outrage on all feeling, and not only derogatory to her

station, but unwomanly?”

“I don't think I 'd say that,” said he, with a faint simper, while he

patted his hand with a gold paper-knife. “I opine the better way would

be to accept her Ladyship's letter as the most natural thing in life

_from her_; that she had preferred a request, which coming from _her_,

was all that was right and reasonable. That there was something very

noble and very elevated in the way she could rise superior to personal

interests, and the ties of kindred, and actually assert the claims of

mere justice; but I'd add that the decision could not lie with us--that

your brother being the head of the family, was the person to whom the

request must be addressed, and that we would, with her permission,

charge ourselves with the task. Pray hear me out--first of all, we have

a delay while she replies to this, with or without the permission we ask

for; in that interval you can inform your brother that a very serious

plot is being concerted against him; that your next letter will fully

inform him as to the details of the conspiracy--your present advice

being simply for warning, and then, when, if she still persist, the

matter must be heard, it will be strange if Augustus shall not have come

to the conclusion that the part intended for him is a very contemptible

one--that of a dupe.”

“Your Lordship's mode may be more diplomatic; mine would be more

direct.”

“Which is exactly its demerit, my Lady,” said he, with one of his

blandest smiles, “In _my_ craft the great secret is never to give a flat

refusal to anything. If the French were to ask us for the Isle of Wight,

the proper reply would be a polite demand for the reasons that prompted

the request--whether 'Osborne' might be reserved--and a courteous

assurance that the claim should meet with every consideration and a

cordial disposition to make every possible concession that might lead to

a closer union with a nation it was our pride and happiness to reckon on

as an ally.”

“These fallacies never deceive any one.”

“Nor are they meant to do so, any more than the words 'your most

obedient and humble servant' at the foot of a letter; but they serve to

keep correspondence within polite limits.”

“And they consume time,” broke she in, impatiently.

“And, as you observe so aptly, they consume time.”

“Let us have done with trifling, my Lord. I mean to answer this letter

in my own way.”

“I can have no other objection to make to that, save the unnecessary

loss of time I have incurred in listening to the matter.”

“That time so precious to the nation you serve!” said she, sneeringly.

“Your Ladyship admirably expresses my meaning.”

“Then, my Lord, I make you the only amends in my power; I take my leave

of you.”

“Your Ladyship's politeness is never at fault,” said he, rising to open

the door for her.

“Has Temple told you that the box on the lower tier is now free--the

box I spoke of?”

“He has; but our stay here is now uncertain. It may be days; it may be

hours--”

“And why was not I told? I have been giving orders to

tradespeople--accepting invitations--making engagements, and what

not. Am I to be treated like the wife of a subaltern in a marching

regiment--to hold myself ready to start when the route comes?”

“How I could envy that subaltern,” said he, with an inimitable mixture

of raillery and deference.

She darted on him a look of indignant anger, and swept out of the room.

Lord Culduff rang his bell, and told the servant to beg Mr. Temple

Bramleigh would have the kindness to step down to him.

“Write to Filangieri, Temple,” said he, “and say that I desire to have

access to the prisoner Rogers. We know nothing of his escape, and the

demand will embarrass--There, don't start objections, my dear boy;

I never play a card without thinking what the enemy will do after he

scores the trick.”

And with this profound encomium on himself he dismissed the secretary,

and proceeded to read the morning papers.

CHAPTER LIII. A RAINY NIGHT AT SEA.

The absurd demand preferred by Lady Augusta in her letter to Marion was

a step taken without any authority from Pracontal, and actually without

his knowledge. On the discovery of the adhering pages of the journal,

and their long consideration of the singular memorandum that they found

within, Pracontal carried away the book to Longworth to show him the

passage and ask what importance he might attach to its contents.

Longworth was certainly struck by the minute particularity with which

an exact place was indicated. There was a rough pen sketch of the Flora,

and a spot marked by a cross at the base of the pedestal, with the

words, “Here will be found the books.” Lower down on the same page was

written, “These volumes, which I did not obtain without difficulty, and

which were too cumbrous to carry away, I have deposited in this safe

place, and the time may come when they will be of value.--G. L.”

“Now,” said Longworth, after some minutes of deep thought, “Lami was

a man engaged in every imaginable conspiracy. There was not a state in

Europe, apparently, where he was not, to some extent, compromised. These

books he refers to may be the records of some secret society, and he

may have stored them there as a security against the lukewarmness or the

treachery of men whose fate might be imperilled by certain documents.

Looking to the character of Lami, his intense devotion to these schemes,

and his crafty nature and the Italian forethought which seems always to

have marked whatever he did, I half incline to this impression. Then,

on the other hand, you remember, Pracontal, when we went over to

Portshandon to inquire about the registry books, we heard that they had

all been stolen or destroyed by the rebels in '98?”

“Yes. I remember that well. I had not attached any importance to the

fact; but I remember how much Kelson was disconcerted and put out by

the intelligence, and how he continually repeated, 'This is no accident;

this is no accident.'”

“It would be a rare piece of fortune if they were the church books, and

that they contained a formal registry of the marriage.”

“But who doubts it?”

“Say rather, my dear friend, why should any one believe it? Just think

for one moment who Montague Bramleigh was, what was his station and

his fortune, and then remember the interval that separated him from the

Italian painter--a man of a certain ability, doubtless. Is it the most

likely thing in the world that if the young Englishman fell in love with

the beautiful Italian, that he would have sacrificed his whole ambition

in life to his passion? Is it not far more probable, in fact, that no

marriage whatever united them? Come, come, Pracontal, this is not, now

at least, a matter to grow sulky over; you cannot be angry or indignant

at my frankness, and you 'll not shoot me for this slur on your

grandmother's fair reputation.”

“I certainly think that with nothing better than a theory to support

it, you might have spared her memory this aspersion.”

“If I had imagined you could not talk of it as unconcernedly as myself,

I assure you I would never have spoken about it.”

“You see now, however, that you have mistaken me--that you have read me

rather as one of your own people than as a Frenchman,” said the other,

warmly.

“I certainly see that I must not speak to you with frankness, and I

shall use caution not to offend you by candor.”

“This is not enough, sir,” said the Frenchman, rising and staring

angrily at him.

“What is not enough?” said Longworth, with a perfect composure.

“Not enough for apology, sir; not enough as _amende_ for an

unwarrantable and insolent calumny.”

“You are getting angry at the sound of your own voice, Pracontal. I now

tell you that I never meant--never could have meant--to offend you. You

came to me for a counsel which I could only give by speaking freely what

was in my mind. This is surely enough for explanation.”

“Then let it all be forgotten at once,” cried the other, warmly.

“I 'll not go that far,” said Longworth, in the same calm tone as

before. “You have accepted my explanation; you have recognized what one

moment of justice must have convinced you of--that I had no intention to

wound your feelings. There is certainly, however, no reason in the world

why I should expose my own to any unnecessary injury. I have escaped a

peril; I have no wish to incur another of the same sort.”

“I don't think I understand you,” said Pracontal, quickly. “Do you mean

we should quarrel?”

“By no means.”

“That we should separate, then?”

“Certainly.”

The Frenchman became pale, and suddenly his face flushed till it was

deep crimson, and his eyes flashed with fire. The effort to be calm was

almost a strain beyond his strength; but he succeeded, and in a voice

scarcely above a whisper, he said, “I am deeply in your debt. I cannot

say how deeply. My lawyer, however, does know, and I will confer with

him.”

“This is a matter of small consequence, and does not press: besides, I

beg you will not let it trouble you.”

The measured coldness with which these words were spoken seemed to jar

painfully on Pracontal's temper, for he snatched his hat from the table,

and with a hurried “Adieu--adieu, then,” left the room. The carriages of

the hotel were waiting in the courtyard to convey the travellers to the

station.

“Where is the train starting for?” asked he of a waiter.

“For Civita, sir.”

“Step up to my room, then, and throw my clothes into a

portmanteau--enough for a few days. I shall have time to write a note, I

suppose?”

“Ample, sir. You have forty minutes yet.” Pracontal opened his

writing-desk and wrote a few lines to Lady Augusta, to tell how a

telegram had just called him away--it might be to Paris, perhaps London.

He would be back within ten days, and explain all. He wished he might

have her leave to write, but he had not a moment left him to ask the

permission. Should he risk the liberty? What if it might displease her?

He was every way unfortunate; nor, in all the days of a life of changes

and vicissitudes, did he remember a sadder moment than this in which he

wrote himself her devoted servant, A. Pracontal de Bramleigh. This done,

he jumped into a carriage, and just reached the train in time to start

for Civita.

There was little of exaggeration when he said he had never known greater

misery and depression than he now felt. The thought of that last meeting

with Longworth overwhelmed him with sorrow. When we bear in mind how

slowly and gradually the edifice of friendship is built up; how many of

our prejudices have often to be overcome; how much of self-education

is effected in the process; the thought that all this labor of time and

feeling should be cast to the winds at once for a word of passion or a

hasty expression, is humiliating to a degree. Pracontal had set great

store by Longworth's friendship for him. He had accepted great favors

at his hand; but so kindly and so gracefully conferred as to double the

obligations by the delicacy with which they were bestowed. And this was

the man whose good feeling for him he had outraged and insulted beyond

recall. “If it had been an open quarrel between us, I could have stood

his fire and shown him how thoroughly I knew myself in the wrong; but

his cold disdain is more than I can bear. And what was it all about? How

my old comrades would laugh if they heard that I had quarrelled with my

best friend. Ah, my grandmother's reputation! _Ma foi_, how much more

importance one often attaches to a word than to what it represents!”

Thus angry with himself, mocking the very pretensions on which he

had assumed to reprehend his friend, and actually ridiculing his own

conduct, he embarked from Marseilles to hasten over to England, and

entreat Kelson to discharge the money obligation which yet bound him to

Longworth.

It was a rough night at sea, and the packet so crowded by passengers

that Pracontal was driven to pass the night on deck. In the haste of

departure he had not provided himself with overcoats or rugs, and was

but ill-suited to stand the severity of a night of cold cutting wind and

occasional drifts of hail. To keep himself warm he walked the deck

for hours, pacing rapidly to and fro: perhaps not sorry at heart that

physical discomfort compelled him to dwell less on the internal griefs

that preyed upon him. One solitary passenger besides himself had sought

the deck, and he had rolled himself in a multiplicity of warm wrappers,

and lay snugly under the shelter of the binnacle--a capacious tarpaulin

cloak surmounting all his other integuments.

Pracontal's campaigning experiences had taught him that the next best

thing to being well cloaked oneself is to lie near the man that is

so; and thus, seeing that the traveller was fast asleep, he stretched

himself under his lee, and even made free to draw a corner of the heavy

tarpaulin over him.

“I say,” cried the stranger, on discovering a neighbor; “I say, old

fellow, you are coming it a bit too free and easy. You've stripped the

covering off my legs.”

“A thousand pardons,” rejoined Pracontal. “I forgot to take my rugs

and wraps with me; and I am shivering with cold. I have not even an

overcoat.”

The tone--so evidently that of a gentleman, and the slight touch of

a foreign accent--apparently at once conciliated the stranger, for he

said, “I have enough and to spare; spread this blanket over you; and

here 's a cushion for a pillow.”

These courtesies, accepted frankly as offered, soon led them to talk

together; and the two men speedily found themselves chatting away like

old acquaintances.

“I am puzzling myself,” said the stranger at last, “to find out are you

an Englishman, who has lived long abroad, or are you a foreigner?”

“Is my English so good as that?” asked Pracontal, laughing.

“The very best I ever heard from any not a born Briton.”

“Well, I'm a Frenchman--or a half Frenchman--with some Italian and some

English blood, too, in me.”

“Ah! I knew you must have had a dash of John Bull in you. No man ever

spoke such English as yours without it.”

“Well, but my English temperament goes two generations back. I don't

believe my father was ever in England.”

With this opening they talked away about national traits and

peculiarities: the Frenchman with all the tact and acuteness travel and

much intercourse with life conferred; and the other with the especial

shrewdness that marks a Londoner. “How did you guess I was a Cockney?”

asked he, laughingly. “I don't take liberties with my H 's.”

“If you had, it's not likely I'd have known it,” said Pracontal. “But

your reference to town, the fidelity with which you clung to what

London would think of this, or say to that, made me suspect you to be a

Londoner; and I see I was right.”

“After all, you Frenchmen are just as full of Paris.”

“Because Paris epitomizes France, and France is the greatest of all

countries.”

“I 'll not stand that. I deny it _in toto_.”

“Well, I'll not open the question now, or maybe you'd make me give up

this blanket.”

“No. I 'll have the matter out on fair grounds. Keep the blanket, but

just let me hear on what grounds you claim precedence for France before

England.”

“I'm too unlucky in matters of dispute to-day,” said Pracontal, sadly,

“to open a new discussion. I quarrelled with, perhaps, the best friend

I had in the world this morning for a mere nothing; and though there is

little fear that anything we could say to each other now would provoke

ill feeling between us, I 'll run no risks.”

“By Jove! it must be Scotch blood is in you. I never heard of such

caution!”

“No, I believe my English connection is regular Saxon. When a man has

been in the newspapers in England, he need not affect secrecy or caution

in talking of himself. I figured in a trial lately; I don't know if you

read the cause. It was tried in Ireland--Count Bramleigh de Pracontal

against Bramleigh.”

“What, are you Pracontal?” cried the stranger, starting to a sitting

posture. “Yes. Why are you so much interested?”

“Because I have seen the place. I have been over the property in

dispute, and the question naturally interests me.”

“Ha! you know Castello, then?”

“Castello, or Bishop's Folly. I know it best by the latter name.”

“And whom am I speaking to?” said Pracontal; “for as you know me,

perhaps I have some right to ask this.”

“My name is Cutbill; and now that you've heard it, you're nothing the

wiser.”

“You probably know the Bramleighs?”

“Every one of them; Augustus, the eldest, I am intimate with.”

“It's not my fault that I have no acquaintance with him. I desired

it much; and Lady Augusta conveyed my wish to Mr. Bramleigh, but he

declined. I don't know on what grounds; but he refused to meet me, and

we have never seen each other.”

“If I don't greatly mistake, you ought to have met. I hope it may not

be yet too late.”

“Ah, but it is! We are _en pleine guerre_ now, and the battle must be

fought out. It is he, and not I, would leave the matter to this issue.

I was for a compromise; I would have accepted an arrangement; I was

unwilling to overthrow a whole family and consign them to ruin. They

might have made their own terms with me; but no, they preferred to

defy me. They determined I should be a mere pretender. They gave me no

alternative; and I fight because there is no retreat open to me.”

“And yet if you knew Bramleigh--”

“_Mon cher_, he would not give me the chance; he repulsed the offer I

made; he would not touch the hand I held out to him.”

“I am told that the judge declared that he never tried a cause where the

defendant displayed a more honorable line of conduct.”

“That is all true. Kelson, my lawyer, said that everything they did was

straightforward and creditable; but he said, too, don't go near them,

don't encourage any acquaintance with them, or some sort of arrangement

will be patched up which will leave everything unsettled to another

generation--when all may become once more litigated with less light to

guide a decision and far less chance of obtaining evidence.”

“Never mind the lawyers, Count, never mind the lawyers. Use your own

good sense, and your own generous instincts; place yourself--in idea--in

Bramleigh's position, and ask yourself could you act more handsomely

than he has done? and then bethink you, what is the proper way to meet

such conduct.”

“It's all too late for this now; don't ask me why, but take my word for

it, it is too late.”

“It's never too late to do the right thing, though it may cost a man

some pain to own he is changing his mind.”

“It's not that; it's not that,” said the other, peevishly, “though I

cannot explain to you why or how.”

“I don't want to hear secrets,” said Cutbill, bluntly; “all the more

that you and I are strangers to each other. I don't think either of us

has had a good look at the other's face yet.”

“I've seen yours, and I don't distrust it,” said the Frenchman.

“Good-night, then, there's a civil speech to go to sleep over,” and so

saying, he rolled over to the other side, and drew his blanket over his

head.

Pracontal lay a long time awake, thinking of the strange companion he

had chanced upon, and that still stranger amount of intimacy that had

grown up between them. “I suppose,” muttered he to himself, “I must be

the most indiscreet fellow in the world; but after all, what have I said

that he has not read in the newspapers, or may not read next week or the

week after? I know how Kelson would condemn me for this careless

habit of talking of myself and my affairs to the first man I meet on a

railroad or a steamer; but I must be what nature made me, and after all,

if I show too much of my hand, I gain something by learning what the

bystanders say of it.”

It was not till nigh daybreak that he dropped off to sleep; and when he

awoke it was to see Mr. Cutbill with a large bowl of hot coffee in one

hand, and a roll in the other, making an early breakfast; a very rueful

figure, too, was he--as, black with smoke and coal-dust, he propped

himself against the binnacle, and gazed out over the waste of waters.