THE CALL
In the Lanfranchi library with Gordon four men were seated in attitudes
of interest and attention. Dallas’ chair was pushed far back in the
shadow and his hand shaded his eyes from the early candles. Opposite
was Count Pietro Gamba, his alert profile and blond beard looking
younger than ever beside the darker Asiatic comeliness of Mavrocordato.
At the table, a map spread before him, his clean-cut, wiry features
full in the light, sat the stranger who had left the card--Lieutenant
Blaquiere, of London, spokesman of the Greek Revolutionary committee.
The latter went on now, with a certain constrained eagerness, his hand
thrown out across the mahogany:
“The standard was raised when Hypsilantes invaded Wallachia and
declared Greece free. The defeat of his ten thousand means little. The
_spirit_ of the nation is what counts, and that, my lord, through all
the years of Turkish dominion, has never died.”
For an hour the visitor had talked, sketching graphically and
succinctly the plans and hopes of the revolutionists in Greece, the
temporary organization effected, the other juntas forming, under the
English committee’s leadership, in Germany and Switzerland. He was
deliberate and impressive. Pietro, enthusiastic for the cause of his
patron, Mavrocordato, had been voluble with questions. Even Dallas had
asked not a few. Gordon, the host, had been of them all most silent.
He had felt an old vision of his youth grow instinct again. Blaquiere’s
words seemed now not to be spoken within four walls, but to ring out of
the distance of an uncouth shore, with strange stern mountains rising
near, a kettle simmering on a fire of sticks, and calm stars looking
down on a minaretted town.
“The mountains look on Marathon--
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free!”
The verse hummed in his mind. Was it years ago he had written that? Or
only yesterday? A _dream_--that had been all! It had faded with his
other visions, one day when he had waked to fame, when he had bartered
them for the bubble of celebrity, the flitter-gold of admiration! In
those old days, he thought with bitterness, he would have been an eager
spirit in the English movement. Then he had sat in Parliament; now he
was an expatriate adventurer, a disqualified _attaché_ of the kingless
Court of Letters!
One thing he still could do. Revolution needed munitions, parks of
artillery, hospital stores. Money could furnish these--it was the
sinews of war. If such were the object of Blaquiere’s visit, he should
not be disappointed. He possessed, unentailed, Newstead Abbey, the seat
of his ancestors, to whose memory he had clung fondly through all his
ostracism--and there were his coal lands of Rochdale. The latter could
be realized on without difficulty. His sister had a private fortune of
her own. Ada, his child, had been provided for at her birth. Rochdale
should bring close upon thirty thousand pounds.
He spoke to Blaquiere:
“Lieutenant, Greece had my earliest songs. She shall have what she
can use to far better advantage now. Mr. Dallas, who starts for
London to-morrow, will take back my authority for the sale of certain
properties whose proceeds shall be turned over to your committee there.”
Mavrocordato’s face flushed with feeling. He turned his eyes on
Blaquiere. A glance of understanding passed between them, and the
latter rose.
“Your lordship,” he said, “the thanks of our committee are small return
for such a gift. The gratitude of Greece will be an ampler recompense.
But--I am here to ask yet more than this.”
As Gordon gazed inquiringly, he laid two documents before him on the
table:
“Will your lordship read?”
Gordon took up the first. A tremor leaped to his lips. He saw his
own credentials, signed by the full committee in London, as their
representative--_in Greece_. His eye caught the well-known, cramped
chirography of John Hobhouse among the signatures.
For a moment his heart seemed to stop. He looked at the second,
glancing at the names affixed: “Alexander Hypsilantes”--“Marco
Botzaris”--a dozen Greek primates and leaders. The name of one man
there present had been added--Mavrocordato.
As he read, the room was very still. The deep breathing of the men who
waited seemed to fill it. He heard Blaquiere’s voice piercing through:
“The revolution needs now only a supreme leader. Your lordship is known
and loved by the Greek people as is no other. The petty chieftains,
whose inveterate ambitions now embroil a national cause, for such a
rallying-point would lay aside their quarrels. With your great name
foreign loans would be certain. Such is the unanimous opinion of the
committee in London, my lord.”
Dallas’ snuff-box dropped to the floor. Gamba made a sudden movement,
but Mavrocordato’s hand, laid on his knee, stilled him.
A flush, vivid on its paleness, had come to Gordon’s cheek--an odd
sensation of confusion that overspread the instant’s elation. If the
Greek people loved him, it was for what he had written years ago, not
for what he was now, a discredited wanderer among the nations! With
what real motive did the committee in London place this great cause in
his hand? Did they offer it in sincere belief, as to one whom England
had misjudged and to whom she owed restitution--a lover of liberty,
one capable of a true deed, of judgment, discernment and high results?
A tingling pang went through him. No. But to one whose name was
famed--how famed!--whose attachment to the revolution would draw to the
struggle the eyes of the world,--_to assure foreign loans!_
He rose and walked to the window, his throat tightening. No one spoke,
though young Gamba stirred restlessly. Dallas was peering into his
recovered snuff-box, and Blaquiere sat movelessly watching.
As Gordon looked out into the dimming dusk and the sky’s blue garden
blossoming with pale stars, the new self that had been developing in
conscience gained its ascendancy. What should it matter to him, why or
how the opportunity came? To Hobhouse, at least, it had been an act
of faith and friendship. As a body, the committee had considered only
its object, political advantage to England--the success of the Greek
revolutionary arms. Why should he ache so fiercely for that juster
valuation which would never be given? Was it not enough that the cause
was one which had been the brightest dream of his youth; that sober
opinion deemed his effort able to advance it?
His mind overran the past years. He saw himself putting away the old
savage indifference and insolent disdain, and struggling for a fresh
foothold on life. The malice that had pursued him in Trevanion he had
accepted unresistingly, as part of an ordained necessity. But with the
unfolding of the new conception and character he had come to realize
that, as the most intimate elements of his own destruction had lain
within himself, so only to himself could he look for self-retrieval.
And was that retrieval to be found in the fatuous passiveness behind
which he had intrenched himself? If there were an appointed destiny, it
could not lie that way, but rather in the meeting of the issues fate
offered, the doing of a worthy deed for the deed’s own sake, the making
real of an heroic dream--putting aside the paltry pride that cavilled
how or why that issue was presented--without reckoning save of the
final outcome.
He thought of an oaken box now on its way to a cemetery in Rome. What
would the man whose ashes it held have replied? He needed no answer to
that!
As he pondered, from the shadowy garden, under the orange-trees woven
with the warm scents of summer, rose a soft strain. It was Teresa,
singing to her harp, her voice burdened to-night with the grief of Mary
Shelley--the song Gordon had long ago written to a plaintive Hindoo
refrain.
Low as the words were, they came clearly into the silence:
“Oh!--my lonely--lonely--lonely--Pillow!
Where is my lover? Where is my lover?
Is it his bark which my dreary dreams discover?
Far--far away! and alone along the billow?
Oh!--my lonely--lonely--lonely--Pillow!
Why must my head ache where his gentle brow lay?
How the long night flags lovelessly and slowly,
And my head droops over thee like the willow!”
Gordon’s gaze had turned in the direction of the sound. He could see
her sitting in her favorite spot, her hair a dusk of starlight, leaning
to her harp. If she only had not sung that--now!
“I do not ask a hasty answer,”--Blaquiere was speaking again,--“it is
not a light proposal Your lordship will wish time--”
The man to whom he spoke put out his hand with a sudden gesture.
“Wait,” he said.
What need of time? Would a day, a week, make him more able? Through
the turmoil of new emotions he reasoned swiftly.
There were two to consider: the woman he loved, whose singing voice
he heard, and Ada, his child. If for Teresa’s happiness he put aside
this call, what then? A continuance of life in this fond refuge he had
found here in Italy--in time, peace and quiet, perhaps. But a happiness
cankered for them both by the recollection of what he might have done,
but would not. And for Ada? The knowledge that he had once failed a
supreme cause.
The song rose again. Pietro Gamba’s face turned suddenly tender.
“Oh! thou, my sad and solitary Pillow!
Send me kind dreams to keep my heart from breaking.
In return for the tears I shed upon thee waking;
Let me not die till he comes back o’er the billow!”
If he went--and did not return.
To die worthily, for a great cause--though he be but one of the many
waves that break upon the shore before the tide can reach its mark. To
forward the splendid march of freedom against the barbarian. To lead
Greece toward its promised land, even though he himself be, like Moses,
destined to see it but afar off. The world could sneer or praise, as
it chose. It might attribute to him the highest motives or the most
vainglorious. Sometime it would understand. It would have his Memoirs,
his final bequest to Ada.
He thought of a picture in England, hidden behind a curtain lest his
daughter should grow up to know the features of her father. “By their
deeds ye shall know them”--the saying possessed him. Far kinder his
going for her memory of him!
Better for Teresa. Her brother remained to care for her. She had in her
own right only the dowry returned to her from the Guiccioli coffers
with her papal separation. But by selling Newstead Abbey--Dallas could
arrange that--he could put her beyond the reach of want forever. Better
far for her! In her recollection it would cover the stain of that life
in Venice from which her hand had drawn him, and leave her love a
higher, nobler thing.
He lifted his head suddenly and addressed Blaquiere:
“I will go,” he said.