She was alone; the packet which the Abbe had delivered lay on the table before her; she bent down over it, and wept. The utter misery of sorrow is only felt where self-reproach mingles with our regrets. All the pangs of other misfortunes are light in comparison with this. The irrevocable past was her own work; she knew it, and cried till her very heart seemed bursting.
CHAPTER IX. SECRETS OF HEAD AND HEART
I must ask of my reader to leave this chamber, where, overwhelmed by her sorrows, poor Kate poured out her grief in tears, and follow me to a small but brilliantly lighted apartment, in which a little party of four persons was seated, discussing their wine, and enjoying the luxury of their cigars. Be not surprised when we say that one of the number was a lady. Madame de Heidendorf, however, puffed her weed with all the zest of a smoker; the others were the Archduke Ernest, a plain, easy-tempered looking man, in the gray undress of an Austrian General, the Foreign Minister, Count Nrinberg, and our old acquaintance, the Abbe D"Esmonde.
The table, besides the usual ornaments of a handsome dessert, was covered with letters, journals, and pamphlets, with here and there a colored print in caricature of some well-known political personage.
Nothing could be more easy and unconstrained than the air and bearing of the guests. The Archduke sat with his uniform coat unb.u.t.toned, and resting one leg upon a chair before him. The Minister tossed over the books, and brushed off the ashes of his cigar against the richly damasked table-cloth; while even the Abbe seemed to have relaxed the smooth urbanity of his face into a look of easy enjoyment Up to this moment the conversation had been general, the princ.i.p.al topics being the incidents of the world of fashion, the flaws and frivolities, the mishaps and misadventures of those whose names were familiar to his Imperial Highness, and in whose vicissitudes he took the most lively interest. These, and a stray anecdote of the turf in England, were the only subjects he cared for, hating politics and State affairs with a most cordial detestation. His presence, however, was a compliment that the Court always paid "the Countess," and he submitted to his torn of duty manfully.
Deeply involved in the clouds of his cigar-smoke, and even more enveloped in the misty regions of his own reveries, he sipped his wine in silence, and heard nothing of the conversation about him. The Minister was then perfectly free to discuss the themes most interesting to him, and learn whatever he could of the state of public opinion in Italy.
"You are quite right, Abbe," said he, with a sage shake of the head.
"Small concessions, petty glimpses of liberty, only give a zest for more enlarged privileges. There is nothing like a good flood of popular anarchy for creating a wholesome disgust to freedom. There must be excesses!"
"Precisely so, sir," said the Abbe. "There can be no question of an antidote if there has been no poisoning."
"Ay; but may not this system be pushed too far? Is not his Holiness already doing so?"
"Some are disposed to think so, but I am not of the number," said D"Esmonde. "It is necessary that he should himself be convinced that the system is a bad one; and there is no mode of conviction so palpable as by a personal experience. Now, this he will soon have. As yet, he does not see that every step in political freedom is an advance towards the fatal heresy that never ceases its persecutions of the Church. Not that our Revolutionists care for Protestantism or the Bible either; but, by making common cause with those who do, see what a large party in England becomes interested for their success. The right of judgment conceded in religious matters, how can you withhold it in political ones? The men who brave the Church will not tremble before a cabinet. Now the Pope sees nothing of this; he even mistakes the flatteries offered to himself for testimonies of attachment to the Faith, and all those kneeling hypocrites who implore his blessing he fancies are faithful children of Rome. He must be awakened from this delusion; but yet none save himself can dispel it He is obstinate and honest."
"If the penalty were to be his own alone, it were not so much matter,"
said the Minister; "but it will cost a revolution."
"Of course it will; but there is time enough to prepare for it."
"The state of the Milanais is far from satisfactory," said the Minister, gravely.
"I know that; but a revolt of a prison always excuses double irons,"
said D"Esmonde, sarcastically.
"Tell him of Sardinia, Abbe," said Madame de Heidendorf.
"Your real danger is from that quarter," said D"Esmonde. "There is a growing spirit of independence there,--a serious desire for free inst.i.tutions, wide apart from the wild democracy of the rest of Italy.
This is a spirit you cannot crush; but you can do better,--you can corrupt it Genoa is a hotbed of Socialist doctrine; the wildest fanaticism of the "Reds" is there triumphant, and our priests are manfully aiding the spread of such opinions. They have received orders to further these notions; and it is thus, and by the excesses consequent on this, you will succeed in trampling down that moderated liberty which is the curse that England is destined to disseminate amongst us. It is easy enough to make an excited people commit an act of indiscretion, and then, with public opinion on your side--"
"How I detest that phrase!" said Madame de Heidendorf; "it is the lowest cant of the day."
"The thing it represents is not to be despised, Madame," said the Abbe.
"These are English notions," said she, sneeringly.
"They will be Russian ones yet, depend upon it, Madame."
"I "d rather know what a few men of vast fortune, like Midchekoff, for instance, think, than have the suffrages of half the greasy mobs of Europe."
"By the way," said the Minister, "what is he doing? Is it true that he is coquetting with Liberals and Fourierists, and all that?"
"For the moment he is," said Madame de Heidendorf; "and two or three of the popularity-seeking sovereigns have sent him their decorations, and if he does not behave better he will be ordered home."
"He is of great use in Italy," said the Minister.
"True; but he must not abuse his position."
"He is just vain enough to lend himself to a movement," said D"Esmonde; "but he shall be watched."
These last words were very significantly uttered.
"You know the Princess, Abbe?" asked the Minister, with a smile; and another smile, as full of meaning, replied to the question.
"She"s pretty, ain"t she?" asked the Archduke.
"Beautiful is the word, sir; but if your Imperial Highness would like to pa.s.s judgment personally, I "ll beg of her to come down to the drawing-room."
"Of all things, most kind of you to make the offer," said he, rising and arranging his coat and sword-knot into some semblance of propriety, while Madame de Heidendorf rang the bell, and despatched a messenger to Kate with the request.
Nina was overjoyed at the commission intrusted to her. Since Kate"s peremptory order, she had not ventured to intrude herself upon her; but now, armed with a message, she never hesitated about invading the precincts of that silent chamber, at whose door she often stood in doubt and speculation.
She tapped gently at the door; there was no answer. A second summons was alike unreplied to, and Nina bent down her head to listen. There were long-drawn breathings, like sleep; but a heavy sigh told that the moments were those of waking sorrow. Cautiously turning the handle of the door, without noise, she opened it and pa.s.sed in. The room was shrouded in a dim half-light, and it was not till after the lapse of some seconds that Nina could distinguish the form of her young mistress, as, with her head buried in her hands, she sat before a table on which lay an open letter.
So absorbed was Kate in grief that she heard nothing, and Nina approached her, slowly, till at last she stood directly behind her, fixedly regarding the heaving figure, the dishevelled hair, and the trembling hands that seemed to clutch with eagerness some object within their grasp. Kate suddenly started, and pushing back her hair from her eyes, seemed as if trying to collect her wandering thoughts. Then, unclasping a case, she placed a miniature before her, and contemplated it attentively. Nina bent over her till she almost touched her in her eagerness. Had any one been there to have seen her features at the moment, they would have perceived the traits of intense and varied pa.s.sion, surprise, rage, and jealousy, all struggling for the mastery.
Her dark skin grew almost livid, and her black eyes glowed with anger; while, with a force like convulsion, she pressed her hands to her heart, as if to calm its beatings. A sea of stormy pa.s.sions was warring within her, and in her changeful expression might be seen the conflict of her resolves. At last, she appeared to have decided; for with noiseless steps she gradually retreated toward the door, her eyes all the while steadily fixed on her mistress.
It seemed to require no slight effort to repress the torrent of rage within her; for even at the door she stood irresolute for a moment, and then, softly opening it, withdrew. Once outside, her pent-up pa.s.sions found vent, and she sobbed violently. Her mood was, however, more of anger than of sorrow, and there was an air of almost insolent pride in the way she now knocked, and then, without waiting for reply, entered the room.
"Madame de Heidendorf requests that the Princess will appear in the drawing-room," said she, abruptly, and confronting Kate"s look of confusion with a steadfast stare.
"Say that I am indisposed, Nina,----that I feel tired and unwell," said Kate, timidly.
"There is an Archduke, Madame."
"What care I for an Archduke, Nina?" said Kate, trying to smile away the awkwardness of her own disturbed manner.
"I have always believed that great folk liked each other," said Nina, sarcastically.
"Then I must lack one element of that condition, Nina," said Kate, good-humoredly; "but pray make my excuses,--say anything you like so that I may be left in quiet."
"How delightful Madame"s reveries must be, when she attaches such value to them!"
"Can you doubt it, Nina?" replied Kate, with a forced gayety. "A betrothed bride ought to be happy; you are always telling me so. I hear of nothing from morn till night but of rich caskets of gems and jewels; you seem to think that diamonds would throw a l.u.s.tre over any gloom."
[Ill.u.s.tration: 120]
"And would they not?" cried Nina, pa.s.sionately "Has not the brow n.o.bler and higher thoughts when encircled by a coronet like this? Does not the heart beat with greater transport beneath gems like these?" And she opened case after case of sparkling jewels as she spoke, and spread them before Kate, on the table.
"And yet I have learned to look on them calmly," said Kate, with an expression of proud indifference.
"Does not that dazzle you?" said Nina, holding up a cross of rose diamonds.