said she, hurriedly.
"The minister by whose order I was imprisoned, the Governor of Malaga, his official underlings, all know of it."
"Enough. Now, by whom was the information given on which you were arrested?"
"A man who called himself the Consul at Campecho, and to whose early history I am disposed to suspect I have the clew, but to whom, unfortunately, in a hasty moment, I betrayed that secret knowledge."
"And thus he dreads and hates you," said she, fixing her dark eyes sternly on me.
"He rather fears me without reason," said I.
"But still you would have traded on that fear, had it served your purpose?" reiterated she, with a pointedness that showed how the application to her own case was uppermost in her thoughts.
"You are less than just to me, Senhora!" said I, proudly. "A variety of circ.u.mstances led me to connect this man with a very unhappy incident which took place years ago in England, and wherein his conduct--supposing him to be the same--was base to the last degree.
This suspicion I was weak enough to let escape me. His enmity was the consequence, and from it followed all the misfortunes I have suffered."
"Was he a murderer?"
"No,--not that."
"Nor a forger?--for methinks in English esteem such is the parallel offence."
"In the case I speak of, forgery was the least of his crimes: he seduced the wife of his friend and benefactor."
"Oh, the wretch!" exclaimed she, with a derisive smile that gave her features--beautiful as they were--an almost demoniac expression. "I trust he never prospered after such iniquity."
Not heeding the tone of sneer in which she uttered this, I replied, "You are right, Senhora; he lived a life of terror and misery. He was a coward; and the man he had injured never ceased to track him from country to country. Over sea and land he followed him; the thirst for vengeance stimulating a heart dead to every other emotion. Accident, when I was a mere boy, brought me into close relation with poor Broughton."
"With whom?" said she, grasping my wrist, while her eyes strained till the very blood started in them.
"Sir Dudley Broughton," said I; but the words were not out ere she fell senseless on the floor. I raised her, and placed her on a sofa; and then, dipping her handkerchief in the fountain, bathed her temples and her lips. But she gave no sign of returning animation; her arms dropped powerless at either side; she did not even seem to breathe. What was I to do? I knew not where to find a bell to summon the servants, even should I dare to leave her. In my excitement, I believed that she was dead, and that I had killed her; aud then there darted through my brain the terrible conviction that this could be no other than Lady Broughton herself,--the unhappy Lydia Delmar. With a long-drawn sigh she at length awoke, and, opening her eyes, looked up at me. A convulsive shudder speedily followed, and she closed them again, and remained still, with her hands clasped tightly over her heart.
"Have I been dreaming a terrible dream," said she, at last, in a weak and broken voice, "or are my dreadful thoughts realities? Tell me of what were we speaking?"
I did not answer. I could not tell her of the sad theme, nor did I dare to deceive her. In this dilemma I became silent; but my confusion did not escape her, and with a voice, every syllable of which struck deep into my heart, she said, "Is this secret your own, or have you ever revealed it to another?"
"I have never told it, nor, Indeed, till now, was the full mystery known to myself."
These few words, which served to confirm her own wavering terrors, at the same time that they showed how she herself had betrayed her dreadful secret, increased her suffering, and for a s.p.a.ce she seemed overwhelmed by affliction.
"Let us speak of this no more," said she at last, in the same hurried voice which once before had made me suspect the soundness of her intellect. "I cannot, I dare not, trust myself to dwell upon this theme; nor will I suffer any one to usurp an ascendency over me from terror.
No, sir; you shall not deceive yourself by such a delusion. I have friends--great and powerful friends--who will protect me. I have money, and can buy the aid that outstrips patronage. Beware, then, how you threaten me!"
"You are unjust to me, lady," said I, calmly, but resolutely. "I never meant to threaten. A mere accident hae put me in possession of a secret which, while you live, none shall ever hear from my lips; nor need you fear any allusion to it will ever escape me, to yourself."
"Then let us part. Let us see each other no more," said she, rising, and approaching a small ivory cabinet which she unlocked. "See, here is enough to satisfy the desire for mere money, if your heart be so set upon wealth that it has no other idol. Take these, and these, and these; they are gems of price, and taken from a royal crown. That necklace of rubies once graced the shoulders of an empress; and here are rings, whose value will buy long years of dissipation and excess."
"I must interrupt you, Senhora," said I, offended at the tone she a.s.sumed towards me. "There is no need to "buy me off;" I am ready to take my leave,--to quit Naples within an hour,--and I pledge myself that we shall never meet again, or if we do, as utter strangers to each other."
"These were the terms of our contract once before," said she, fixing her gaze steadfastly on me.
"And by whom broken, and how?" said I.
"True,--too true!" exclaimed she, in a voice of deep emotion. "Fate, that did this, has doubtless other punishments in store for me! It is plain, then, that I must trust you,--I, who can feel confidence in none!"
"I do not seek for it, Senhora," replied I; "my offer is to leave this city, where already I see but little prospect of urging my suit with success. Why should we meet again in life, when both of us are travelling opposite roads?"
"This suit of yours is, then, a real demand, founded upon an actual loss,--matter of fact throughout?" This, although said in these few words, had nothing offensive in its tone, and I replied by an a.s.surance of my good faith and veracity.
"Send me the memorial this evening; to-morrow, or the day after at farthest, you shall have an answer. As for your demand upon the Havannah, the banker is my own, and I can answer for your being honorably dealt with; all your property in his keeping, I will guarantee."
"If that be so, Senhora, I am indifferent about the Spanish Minister"s reply; I shall have wealth more than enough for all my desires, without him."
"How do you call yourself in these papers?" asked she, hurriedly.
"El Conde de Cregano."
"And you were known by that t.i.tle in Mexico?"
"Certainly; I have no other."
She stared at me fixedly for a minute or two, and then muttered to herself, "By what pretension should _I_ question his rank!" then, turning to me, said, "Senhor el Conde de Cregano, I receive the world at large every evening save Sat.u.r.day; that night I reserve for my friends.
Come as often as you can during the week, but never omit a Sat.u.r.day; visit me at the opera frequently; speak to me always when we meet in public places; be my intimate friend, in fact, but not more,--you have too much tact to be my admirer." With this she gave me her hand, which I pressed respectfully to my lips, and bowing deeply, moved towards the door.
"We understand each other," said she, calmly.
"Perfectly, Madame," replied I.
"Then never say, sir," resumed she, in a stern, determined voice, "never say that you are not an adventurer; never dare to tell me that one who so quickly a.s.sumes a part is not a professed actor on the great boards of life, ready to take the character a.s.signed him, be it broad farce or comedy,--ay, or even tragedy, if needs were. Do not deny or seek to contradict me; I did not care that your countship had fourteen quarterings behind it,--nay, I like you even better as you are. There, now you look natural and at your ease. Adieu, Monsieur le Comte."
"Adieu, Madame la Marquise," said I putting as much irony into my accent as might repay her; and then we parted. Whatever her feelings, I know not,--mine, I own, were scarcely of the pleasantest; prompting me to make my residence at Naples as brief as might be, and to see no more of my "dear friend of former years" than was absolutely indispensable.
Were I to dwell upon those portions of my history which afforded me the highest amount of enjoyment, while pa.s.sing I might linger upon the weeks I spent in Naples as perhaps the very pleasantest of my life. The world of fashion was new to me. All those fascinations to which habit renders men either apathetic or indifferent, came fresh upon _me_. The outward show of splendor in dress and jewels, gorgeous saloons, rare flowers, exquisite pictures and statues, soon cease to astonish and amaze; but it takes a long while ere the charm of intercourse with really brilliant society begins to wear off, and ere a man recognizes a degree of sameness in the pleasures and amus.e.m.e.nts of his fashionable friends.
I am not sure that the society which I frequented had not more power of captivation than a more rigidly scrupulous circle, since, while exacting all the observances of polished life, it yet admitted a degree of liberty, almost of familiarity, among its members, that I have since remarked is not common in the wider intercourse of the world.
Pretty women were not ashamed to look their best, and dress the most becomingly; witty men were not chary of their smartness; courtiers were confidential; statesmen were candid; men of the world unbent, as if in a circle where their freedom would not be misinterpreted, and said a hundred things that in other societies would have been, to say the least, indiscreet. It is true that individuals were more discussed than events, and that characters, not facts, formed the staple of the talk; but how amusing was it, what stores of anecdote were opened, what strange histories and curious ill.u.s.trations of life unfolded! Pretension was ridiculed, vulgarity exposed, stupidity laughed at, awkwardness criticized, and want of tact condemned, with most unsparing ridicule; but I am bound to own that there were few commendations reserved for virtuous conduct or honorable action. The debtor side of the account was full, but the credit had not an item on it!
No rank, however exalted, could escape the judgments of a "set" who, with all the exclusiveness of fashion, affected a most democratic spirit of equality. It was, however, a "communism" that a.s.sumed to start on the basis of every one haviug at least ten thousand a year,--not so bad a theory, were it only practicable.
I must not linger longer on this subject, on which I have only touched to remark that here it was where I acquired that knowledge of forms and conventionalities which const.i.tute the tactique of life,--those "gambits" and "openings," to use a chess phrase, by which you at once obtain an advantage over an equal adversary, and secure yourself against injury with even a superior player. I learned when to use an ill.u.s.tration or a story; when to become a mere listener; how to a.s.sist a slow man without his detecting the aid; and how to close a discussion with an epigram,--and all this without the faintest show of premeditation or the very slightest sign of forethought. While my education as a man of the world was progressing, my material fortune was also advancing. The Spanish Amba.s.sador, who had referred my case to his court, ascertained that I had been most infamously treated; that not alone my rank and fortune were indisputable, but that the individual on whose affirmation I was arrested was himself a Carlist spy, and the noted agent of a great Northern power. In fact, so manifold were his infractions against law, in every country in Europe, that the only difficulty was to what particular power to hand him over, so many laying claim to the honor of punishing him. In the end, Naples obtained this distinction! and at the very period I was enjoying the luxurious pleasures of that capital, "my friend the Consul" was expanding his chest and his faculties in the less captivating career of a galley-slave. "Fortune is just," said I, as I arranged my cravat at the window which overlooked the Bay, on whose gla.s.sy surface some half-dozen boats moved sluggishly, as the red and yellow rowers kept time to the "stroke" by the clanking of their fetters.
Governments move slowly, particularly when the case is one of refunding a previous spoliation; meanwhile they admitted my claim; and by way of keeping me in good-humor, they sent me a cross of the Order of Isabella, of the first cla.s.s,--a very gratifying recognition of my n.o.ble birth and merits. My intimacy with the Duke of Medina--the brother of the king--obtained for me the Neapolitan Order; and thus was I decorated with three very distinguished cordons, which I wore in my b.u.t.ton-hole as a "tricolor,"--a fact insignificant in itself; but I mention it here, as many of my imitators have since that affected to be the inventors of the method.
Periods of expectancy are generally deemed great trials, making inroads upon the health, and sapping the energies of the mind. Such was not my case here; I waited like one who loiters in some delicious garden, surrounded with blooming flowers and sweet odors. The delays and procrastinations of cabinets--for which the most profuse apologies were made--I bore with a degree of calm equanimity that won f or me the appellation of a most finished gentleman; and thus was I almost unconsciously perfecting myself in that grand element of breeding whose triumph is "impa.s.siveness."
There were moments when I actually dreaded the termination of my cause, so agreeable had Naples become to me; but as the rich gamester is certain to win, while the poor player is luckless ever, successes crowded on me, because I was half indifferent to them.
Six months had now nearly elapsed since my arrival at Naples, and I was paying a morning visit to the Marchesa, whom I was engaged to accompany to a grand _dejeuner_, to be given on board of a British ship of war in the Bay. It was one of those gorgeous days of brilliant coloring, which, in Italy, seem to exaggerate the effect of landscape, and defy all efforts of art to imitate; the scene was heightened, too, by the objects moving across the bay. The various boats, with ensigns floating and music playing; the swift "La-teeners," skimming along the gla.s.sy surface, almost without a breath of wind; and then the great three-decker herself, in all the pride of her majestic size, with flags of every nation fluttering from her halyards,--were splendid adjuncts to the picture.