As for the Peninsula, Spain and Portugal are in as miserable a plight as free inst.i.tutions combined with Popery can make them. If Romanism is to be the religion of the State, let it be allied with Absolutism. The right to think, read, and speak, are incompatible with the dictates of a Church that forbids all three. Rome is the type. It is a grand and a stupendous tyranny. _Gare!_ to those who try to make it a popular rule!
So... I find that all Baden is full of our great picnic! Ours, I say, for here lies Lady B---- B----"s respectful compliments, &c, and my own replication is already delivered. It seems that we have taken the true way to create popular interest, by trespa.s.sing on popular enjoyment. We have engaged M. Gougon, the _chef_ of the Cursaal; engaged the band who usually perform before the promenade; engaged all the saddle-horses, and most of the carriages--in fact, we have enlisted every thing save the Genius Loci, the hump-backed croupier of the roulette table.
Why we should travel twelve miles or so, out of our way, to bring Baden with us I cannot so clearly see. Why we cannot be satisfied with vice without a change of venue I do not understand. But with this I have nothing to do. Like the Irishman, "I am but a lodger." Indeed, I believe my own poor presence was less desired at this _fete_ than that of my London phaeton and my two black ponies, which, I am told, are very much admired here--a certain sign that they are not in the most correct taste. However, I have my revenge. As Hussars, when invited to dine out at questionable places, always appear in plain clothes, so shall I come to the rendezvous in a _fiacre_; though, I own, it is very like obtaining a dinner under false pretences.
Already the little town is a-stir; servants are hastening to and fro; ominous-looking baskets and hampers are seen to pa.s.s and repa.s.s; strange quadrupeds are led by as saddle-horses, their gay headstalls and splendid saddle-cloths scarce diverting the eye from "groggy" fore-legs and drawn-up quarters; curiously dressed young gentlemen, queer combinations of Jockeyism with an Arcadian simplicity, stand in groups about; and, now and then, a carriage rolls by, and disappears up some steep street in search of its company.
Ah! there go the Tollingtons! and in a conveniency, too, they"d scarcely like to be seen with in Hyde Park. What a droll old rattle-trap! and what a pair of wretched hacks to draw it! After all, one cannot help avowing that these people, seated there in that most miserable equipage, where poverty exhibits its most ludicrous of aspects, even there, they preserve as decisive an air of cla.s.s and rank as--as--yes, I have found the exact equivalent--as almost every foreigner seated in a handsome carriage does of the opposite. Prejudice, bigotry, narrow-mindedness, or any thing else of the same kind it may be; but, after a great part of a life spent abroad, my testimony is, that for one person of either s.e.x, whose appearance unmistakeably p.r.o.nounces condition, met, abroad--I care not where--at least one hundred are to be seen in England. So much for the nation of shopkeepers!
Ah! a tandem, by Jove! and rather well got up. Of course it could be no other than Burton--"the ruling pa.s.sion strong in "debt!"" Well, he may have forgotten his creditors, but he has not forgotten how to hold the ribbons.
What"s this heavy old coach with a cabriolet over the rumble?--the Russian minister, Kataffsky! Lord bless us! from all the strong braces and bars of wood and iron, one would say that it was built to stand a journey to Siberia. Who knows, but it may travel that road yet!...
Pretty woman the Princess, but with all the characteristic knavery of her race in the eyes. Paulwas right when he refused to license Jews in Russia, because he knew his subjects would cheat _them!_
"_Bon jour, Marquis_." Monsieur de Tavanne, very absurd but a chivalrous Frenchman of the old school. They say that, meeting the late Duc d"Orleans at Lady Grenville"s, he took a very abrupt leave, expressing as his reason that he did not know her Ladyship received "_des gens comme cela_."
A Vienna _Coupe_, with a Vienna Coachman, and a Vienna Countess inside, are very distinctive in their way. The Grafin von Lowenhaufen, one of those pretty _intriguantes_ of modern political warfare who frequent watering-places and act as the tirailleurs for Metternich and Guizot.
Talleyrand avowed the great advantage of such a.s.sistance, which he said was impossible for an English minister, for "les Anglaises" always fell in love and blabbed!
Here comes a showy affair!--a real landau with four horses, as fine as bouquets and worsted ta.s.sels can make them! No mistaking it--_Erin go Brag!_ Sir Roger M"Causland and my lady, and the four Misses and the Master M"Causland. They are the invincibles of modern travel; they have stormed every court in Europe, and are the terror of Grand Marechals from Naples to the Pole. Heaven help the English minister in whose city they squat for a winter! He would have less trouble with a new tariff or a new boundary than in arranging their squabbles with court functionaries and the police. Sir Roger _must_ know the King and his Ministers, and expound to them his own notions of the government, with divers hints about free trade and other like matters. My Lady _must_ be invited to all court b.a.l.l.s and concerts, and a fair proportion of dinners; and this, "_de droit_," because "the M"Causland" was a King of Ballyshandera in the year 4, and my Lady herself being an O"Dowde, also of blood royal. People may laugh at these absurd, shameless pretensions, but "_il rit le mieux, qui rit le dernier_," says the proverb; and if the sentiment be one the M"Causlands" dignity permit, they have the right to laugh heartily. Boredom, actual boredom--a perseverance that is dead to all shame--a persistance that no modesty rebukes--a steady resolve to push forward, wins its way socially as well as strategically; and even the folding-doors of court saloons fly open before its magic sesame.
And who are these gay equestrians with prancing hackneys, flowing plumes, and flaunting habits?--The Fothergills; four handsome, dashing, _effronte_ girls, who, under the mock protection of a small schoolboy brother, are, really, escorted by a group of moustached heroes, more than one of whom I already recognise as scarcely fit company for the daughters of an English church dignitary. _Mais que voulez-vous?_ They would not visit the curate"s wife and sister in Durham, but they will ride out at Baden with blacklegs and swindlers! The Count yonder, Monsieur de Mallenville, is a noted character in Paris, and is always attended, when there, by an emissary of the police, who, with what Alphonse Karr calls an _empress.e.m.e.nt de bonne compagnie_, never leaves him for a moment.
And here we have the "dons" of the entertainment, la Princesse de Rubetzki, as pretty a piece of devilry as ever Poland manufactured to sow treason and disaffection, accompanied by her devoted admirer the Austrian general, Count Cohary. Poor fellow! all his efforts to appear young and _volage_ are as nothing to the difficulties he endures in steering between the fair Princess"s politics and her affection. An Austrian of the "_vieille roche_" he is shocked by the Liberalism of his lady-love; and yet, with Spielberg before him, he cannot tear himself away.
They who are not acquainted with the world of the Continent may think it strange that society, even in a watering-place, should a.s.semble individuals so different in rank and social position; but a very little experience will always shew that intercourse is really as much denied between such parties as though they were in different hemispheres. As the Rhone rolls its muddy current through the blue waters of the Lake of Geneva, and never mingles its turbid stream with the clear waves beside it, so these people are seen pouring their flood through every a.s.semblage, and never disturbing the placid surface in their course.
To effect this, two requisites are indispensable to the company,--a very rigid good-breeding and a very lax morality. No one can deny that both are abundant.
And here, if I mistake not, comes my own _cher-a-banc_. Truly, my excellent valet has followed my directions to the letter. I said, "Something of the commonest," and he has brought me a _fiacre_ that seems as moribund and creaky as myself. No matter, I am ready. And now to be off!
CHAPTER X.
Now has there happened to me one of the strangest adventures of my strange life, and before I sleep I have determined to note it down, for no other reason than this: that my waking thoughts to-morrow will refuse to credit mere memory, without some such corroboration. Nay, I have another witness--this glove!
Were it not for this, I should have chronicled our _fete_ which really was far more successful than such things usually are. Not only was there no _contretemps_, but all went off well and pleasantly. The men were witty and good-tempered; the women--albeit many of them handsome--were _aimable_, and disposed to be pleased; the weather and the champagne were perfect. They who could eat--which I couldn"t--say, that Gougon was admirable; and the band played some of Donizetti"s pieces with great precision and effect. _Ainsi_, the elements were all favourable; each instrument filled its part; and the _ensemble_ was good--rather a rare event where people come out expressly bent on enjoyment, and determined to take pleasure by storm. Premeditated happiness, like marriage for love, is often too much premeditated. Here, however, "the G.o.ds were propitious." Unlike most picnics, there neither was rain nor rancour; and considering that we had specimens of at least half-a-dozen different nationalities, and frequently as many different languages going at once, there was much amusing conversation, and a great deal of pleasant, gossip-ping anecdote: not that regular story-telling which depends upon its stage-effect of voice and manner, but that far more agreeable kind of narrative that claims interest from being about people and places that we know beforehand, conveying traits of character and mind of well-known persons, always amusing and interesting.
There was a French secretary of legation for Berne, a most pleasant _convive_; and the Austrian general was equally amusing. Some of his anecdotes of the campaign of 1805 were admirable: by the way, he felt dreadfully shocked at his own confession that he remembered Wagram. The Countess Giordani came late. We were returning from our ramble among rocks and cliffs when she appeared.
I did not wish to be presented; I preferred rather the part of observing her, which acquaintance would have prevented. But old Lady B---- did not give me the choice: she took my arm, and, after a little tour through the company, came directly in front of the Countess, saying, with a bluntness all her own,--
"Madame la Comtesse, let me present a friend whose long residence in your country gives him almost the claim of a countryman:--M, Templeton."
If I was not unmoved by the suddenness of this introduction--appealing as it did, to me at least, to old memories--the Countess was composure itself: a faint smile in acknowledgment of the speech, a gentle expression of easy satisfaction on meeting one who had visited her country, were all that even my prying curiosity could detect.
"What part of Sicily have you seen?" said she to me.
"My friend Lady B----," said I, "has made me a greater traveller than I can pretend to be: I have been no further south than Naples."
"Oh! I am not Neapolitan," said she, hastily, and with an air like disappointment.
I watched her closely as she spoke, and at once said to myself, "No!
this is not, this cannot be, Caroline Graham."
We conversed but little during dinner. She evidently did not speak French willingly, and my Italian had been too long in rust for fluency.
Of English she shewed not the least knowledge. There were stories told in her hearing, at some of which to avoid laughter would have been scarcely possible, and still she never smiled once. If I wanted any additional evidence that she was not of English origin, chance presented one, as she was referred to by the Russian for the name of a certain Sicilian family where a "vendetta" had been preserved for two entire centuries; and the Countess replied, with a slight blush, "The Marquis of Bianconetti--my uncle."
I own that, while it was with a sense of relief I learned to believe that the Countess was not the sister of my poor friend, I still could not help feeling something akin to disappointment at the discovery. I felt as though I had been heaping up a store of care and anxiety around me for one I had never seen before, and for whom I could really take no deep interest. One husbands their affections as they grow older.
The spendthrift habit of caring for people without even knowing why, or asking wherefore, which is one of the pastimes--and sometimes a right pleasant one, too--of youth, becomes rarer as we go further on in life, till at last we grow to be as grudging of our esteem as of our gold, and lend neither, save on good interest and the best security. Bad health has done for me the work of time, and I am already oppressed and weary of the evils of age.
Something, perhaps, of this kind--some chagrin, too, that the Countess was not my old acquaintance though, Heaven knows, it had grieved me far more to know she had been--some discontent with myself for being discontented--or "any other reason why,"--but so was it, I felt what in fashionable slang is called "put out," and, in consequence, resolved to leave the party and make my way homeward at the first favourable opportunity. Before setting out I had determined, as the night would be moonlit, to make a slight _detour_, and thus avoid all the _fracas_ and tumult of driving home in a mob; and, with this intention, had ordered my phaeton to meet me in the Mourg-Thal, at a small inn, whither I should repair on foot, and then make my tour back by the Castle of Eberstein.
A move of the company to take coffee on a rock beside the Waterfall gave me the opportunity I desired, and I sauntered along a little path which in a few moments led me into the Pine Forest, and which, from the directions I had received, I well knew conducted over the mountain, and descended by a series of steep zigzags into the valley of the Mourg.
Although I had quitted the party long before sunset, the moon was high and bright ere I reached the spot where my carriage awaited me.
Exhilarated by the unwonted exertion--half-gratified, too, by the consciousness of supporting a degree of fatigue I had been p.r.o.nounced incapable of,--I took my seat in good spirits, to drive back to Baden.
As I ascended the steep road towards Eberstein, I observed that lights were gleaming from the windows of the large salon of the castle, that looks towards the glen. I knew that the Grand Ducal family were at Carlsruhe, and was therefore somewhat surprised to see these signs of habitation in one of the state apartments of the chateau.
Alternately catching glimpses of and again losing these bright lights, I slowly toiled up the steep acclivity, which, to relieve my ponies, I ascended on foot. We were near the top, the carriage had preceded me some fifty yards or so, and I, alone, had reached a deeply-shaded spot, over which an ancient outwork of the castle threw a broad shadow, when suddenly I was startled by the sound of voices, so close beside me that I actually turned to see if the speakers were not following me; nor was it till they again spoke that I could believe that they were standing on the terrace above me. If mere surprise at the unexpected sound of voices was my first sensation, what was it to that which followed, as I heard a man"s voice say,--
"But how comes this M. Templeton to be of any consequence in the matter?
It is true he was a witness, but he has no interest in troubling himself with the affair. He is an invalid besides--some say, dying."
"Would he were dead!" interrupted a lower voice; but, although the accents were uttered with an unusual force, I knew them--at once I recognised them. It was the Countess spoke.
"Why so, if he never recognised you?"
"How am I certain of this?" said she again. "How shall I satisfy my own fears, that at every instant are ready to betray me? I dread his reserve more than all."
"If he be so very inconvenient," interposed the man, in a half-careless tone, "there may surely be found means to induce him to leave this.
Invalids are often superst.i.tious. Might not a civil intimation that his health was suffering from his _sejour_ incline him to depart?"
The Countess made no reply: possibly the bantering tone a.s.sumed by her companion displeased her. After a brief silence, he resumed,--
"Does the man play? does he frequent the Saal? There surely are a hundred ways to force a quarrel on him."
"Easier than terminate it with advantage," said she, bitterly.
I heard no more; for, although they still continued to speak, they had descended from the terrace and entered the garden. I was alone. Before me, at the turn of the road, stood my servant, waiting with the horses.
All was still as the grave. Was this I had heard real? were the words truly spoken, or were they merely some trick of an overwrought, sickly imagination! I moved into the middle of the road, so as to have a better view of the old "Schloss;" but, except a single light in a remote tower, all was shrouded in darkness: the salon, I believed to have been lit up, lay in deepest shadow. There was nothing I had not given, at that instant, to be able to resolve my doubts.
I walked hurriedly on, eager to question my servant both as to the voices and the lights; and as I went my eye fell upon an object before me in the road. I took it up--it was a glove--a lady"s glove! How came it there, if it had not fallen from the terrace?
With increased speed I moved forward, my convictions now strengthened by this new testimony.
My servant had neither seen nor heard any thing; indeed his replies to me were conveyed in a tone that shewed in what light he regarded my questioning. It was scarcely possible that he could not have been struck with the bright glare that illuminated a portion of the castle, yet he had not seen it; and as to voices, he stoutly averred that, although he could distinctly note the clatter of the mill in the valley below us, he had heard no human sound since we left the little inn.