"My Lord Norwood," said the Abbe, "I will not torture you by any prolixity, nor will I waste your time by any appeal to your forgiveness.
If my own conduct in the affair I am about to relate should not meet your approval, it is enough that I have satisfied my own conscience."
"Go on--go on," said Norwood, in a tone of almost sarcasm; "I see that you have injured me, let me hear how and where."
"You shall hear both, my Lord, and briefly too. I have only to invoke your memory, and the story is told. You remember being at Salamanca, in the year 18----? you remember, too, a certain ballerina of the Grand Opera? You had seen her first at Seville--"
"Yes----; yes," broke in Norwood, reddening deeply; "I know what you mean--the girl was my mistress."
"Stay, my Lord. Do not dishonor yourself; she was your wife,--legally and formally married to you,--the registry of the act is in existence, and the priest who performed the ceremony now stands before you."
"By Heaven!" said Norwood, springing to his feet,
"You are a bold fellow to dare this game with _me!_ and to try it in such a place as this!"
"Ay, my Lord, the river rolls dark and silently beside us," said D"Esmonde, calmly; "and the Arno has covered up many a more dreadful deed; but I have no fears,--not one. I am unarmed, in strength I am certainly not your equal, and yet, I repeat it, my heart a.s.sures me that I stand in no peril."
For an instant Norwood seemed to hesitate how to act. The great veins of his face and forehead became swollen and knotted, and he breathed with the rushing sound of severe, restrained pa.s.sion. At last, as if to guard himself against any sudden impulse of anger, he walked round and seated himself at the opposite side of the table.
D"Esmonde resumed as calmly as before: "Yes, my Lord, Lola took care that everything should be regular and in form; and the names of Gerald Acton and Lola de Seviglia are inscribed on the records of the Collegiate Chapel. Two of the witnesses are still living; one of them, then a poor boy carrying messages for the convent, is now captain in the Pope"s Guard."
"Come, come,----enough of this," cried Norwood, impatiently. "I see the drift of it all. When the Church interposes her kind offices, the question resolves itself always into money. How much--how much?"
"You mistake greatly, my Lord; but your error does not offend me. I know too well how men of _your_ form of belief regard men of _mine!_ I am not here either to combat a prejudice, or a.s.sert a right. I tell you, therefore, calmly and dispa.s.sionately, that no demand is made upon you.
There is no siege laid against you, in person or in purse."
"Then how does the matter concern me, if this girl be alive?--and even of that I have my doubts--"
"You need have none," said D"Esmonde, interruptingly. "Lady Norwood-----"
"Stop! By Heaven! if you dare to give her that name, I"ll not answer for myself."
"I call her as she styles herself,----as she is called by all around her. Yes, my Lord, the shame is as open as gossip and malevolence can make it. The foreigner is but too glad when he can involve an English name and t.i.tle in a reproach that we are p.r.o.ne to cast upon him. A peeress is a high mark for scandal! Who stoops to ask how or when or where she became this? Who interposes a charitable word of explanation or of incredulity? From what you know of life, on what side, think you, will lie the ingenuity and craft? Whether will the evidence preponderate to prove her your wife or to exonerate _you?_ At all events, how will the matter read in England? I speak not of your ruined hopes of an alliance befitting your high station. _This_ is beyond repairing! But are you ready to meet the shame and ignominy of the story? Nothing is too base, nothing too infamous, for an imputation. Will any one, I ask of you--will any one a.s.sert that you are ignorant of all this? Would any one believe who heard it? Will not the tale be rather circulated with all its notes and comments? Will not men fill up every blank by the devices of their own bad ingenuity? Will not some a.s.sert that you are a partner in your own infamy, and that your fingers have touched the price of your shame?"
"Stop!" cried Norwood. "Another word--one syllable more like this--and, by the Heaven above us, your lips will never move again!"
"It would be a sorry recompense for my devotion to you, my Lord," said the Abbe, with a profound sigh.
"Devotion!" repeated Norwood, in a voice of insulting sarcasm; "as if I were to be tricked by this! Keep these artifices for some trembling devotee, some bedridden or palsied worshipper of saintly relics and holy legerdemain; I "m not the stuff for such deceptions!"
"And yet, my Lord, what possible benefit can accrue to myself from this ungracious task? With all your ingenuity, what personal gain can result to me?"
"What care I for your motives, sir?" responded Norwood, fiercely. "I only know that you had never incurred so critical a hazard without an object. You either seek to exert a menace over me, or to be revenged on _her_."
"Alas, my Lord, I see how little hope I should have of vindicating myself before you. Your estimate of the Papists suggests nothing above craft and dishonesty. You will not believe that human affections, love of country, and all the other a.s.sociations of a home, are strong in hearts that beat beneath the serge frock of the priest. Still less do you know the great working principle of our Faith,--the law which binds us, for every unjust act we have done in life, to make an expiation in this world. For many a year has my conscience been burdened with this offence. But for my weak compliance with your request, I should never have performed this ceremony. Had _I_ been firm, _you_ had been saved.
Nay, in my eagerness to serve you, I only worked your ruin; for, on confessing to my Superior what I had done, he at once took measures to ratify the act of marriage, and my rank as a deacon took date from the day before the ceremony." D"Esmonde seemed not to notice the gesture of indignation with which Norwood heard these words, but he went on: "It is, then, to make some requital for this wrong, that I now risk all that your anger may inflict upon me."
"Where is this woman?" cried Norwood, savagely, and as if impatient at a vindication for which he felt no interest. "Where is she?"
"She is here, my Lord," said the other, meekly.
"Here? How do you mean? Not in this house?"
"I mean that she is now in Florence."
"What, living openly here?--calling herself by my name?"
"She lives in all the splendor of immense wealth, and as openly as the protection of Prince Midchekoff----"
"Midchekoff----Midchekoff, did you say?" cried Norwood, in a burst of pa.s.sion.
"Yes, my Lord. The haughty Russian exults in the insult that this offers to the proudest aristocracy of Europe. This is the vengeance he exacts for the cold disdain he experienced in London, and all that reserve that met his attempts in English society."
"How came she here?--who sent for her?--who devised this scheme? Tell me the whole truth, for, by Heaven, if I see you equivocate, you"ll never quit this chamber living!"
"I" ll tell you everything, truthfully and fairly," said the Abbe, with calm dignity; and now in a few words he traced Nina"s life, from the time of her residence under Lady Hester"s roof, to the moment of her return to Florence. He omitted nothing; neither her intimacy with Jekyl nor her pa.s.sion for George Onslow. Even to the incident of the torn dress on the night of the flight, he told all.
Norwood listened with the stern collectedness of one who had nerved himself for a great effort. Although the blood spurted from his compressed lips, and the nails of his fingers were buried in his hands, he uttered never a word. At last, when D"Esmonde paused, he said,----
"And _you_ knew all this?"
"Nothing whatever of it I never chanced to see her at Florence, nor had I the slightest suspicion of her presence there."
"Lady Hester knew it? Miss Dalton knew it?"
"I suspect not at that time."
"They know it _now_, then?"
"Who does not? Is not Florence ringing with the story? When has scandal fallen upon such material for its malevolence? Such _dramatis personae_ as a prince, an English peer, and his peeress, are not of every day"s good fortune!"
"Be cautious how you harp on this theme, priest. In your good zeal to hammer the metal soft you may chance to crush your own finger."
"I must be frank with you, my Lord, whatever the hazard. He would be a sorry surgeon who, after giving his patient all the agony of the knife, stopped short, and left the malady unextirpated."
"Come now, D"Esmonde," said Norwood, as with a strong grasp he drew the other down on the sofa beside him, "_You_ have your debt to acquit in this matter as well as myself. I do not seek to know how or why or upon whom. Your priestly craft need not be called into exercise. I want nothing of your secrets; I only ask your counsel. That much in our common cause you cannot refuse me. What shall I do in this affair? No cant, no hypocritical affectation of Christian forgiveness, none of that hackneyed advice that you dole out to your devotees; speak freely, and like a man of the world. What is to be done here?"
"If the marriage admitted of dispute or denial, I should say disavow it," said the priest "It is too late for this."
"Go on. What next?"
"Then comes the difficulty. To a.s.sert your own honor, you must begin by a recognition of her as your wife. This looks rash, but I see no other course. You cannot call Midchekoff to a reckoning on any other grounds.
Then comes the question, is such a woman worth fighting for? or must the only consideration be the fact that she bears your name, and that she is the Viscountess Norwood in every society she can enter? How is this to be borne? The stricter code of England rejects such claimants altogether from its circle; but on the Continent they are everywhere. Will it be possible for you to live under this open shame?"
"Your advice is, then,----shoot him!" said Norwood; and he bent his eyes fixedly on the priest as he spoke. "It is my own notion, also. If the choice were open to me, D"Esmonde, I "d rather have exacted the payment of this debt from Onslow; I hated the fellow from my very heart. Not that I owe this Russian any good will. We have more than once been on the verge of a quarrel. It was not my fault if it went no further.
They say, too, that he has no taste for these things. If so, one must stimulate his appet.i.te, that"s all!--eh, D"Esmonde? _Your_ countrymen seldom need such provocations?"
"We have our faults, my Lord; but this is scarcely amongst their number."