His pa.s.sport, showing that he was an English peer, obtained for him all the deference and respect foreign officials are accustomed to render to that t.i.tle, and the Prefect announced that if it suited his convenience, he would wait on his Lordship at his hotel to receive his deposition.
"I have nothing to depose, no information to give," was the dry and not over-courteous response; but as the visit, it was intimated, was indispensable, he named his hour to admit him.
The bland and polite tone of the Prefect was met by a manner of cold but well-bred ease which seemed to imply that the traveller only regarded the incident in the light of an unpleasant interruption to his journey, but in which he took no other interest. Even the hints thrown out that he ought to consider himself aggrieved and his dignity insulted, produced no effect upon him.
"It was my intention to have halted a few days at Ma.s.sa, and I could have obtained another courier in the interval," was the cool commentary he bestowed on the incident.
"But your Lordship would surely desire investigation. A man is missing; a great crime may have been committed--"
"Excuse my interrupting; but as I am not, nor can be supposed to be, the criminal,--nor do I feel myself the victim,--while I have not a claim to the character of witness, you would only hara.s.s me with interrogatories I could not answer, and excite me to take interest, or at least bestow attention, on what cannot concern me."
"Yet there are circ.u.mstances in this case which give it the character of a preconcerted plan," said the Prefect, thoughtfully.
"Perhaps so," said the other, in a tone of utter indifference.
"Certainly, the companion of the man who is missing, and of whom no clew can be discovered, is reported to have uttered your name repeatedly in his ravings."
"My name,--how so?" cried the stranger, hurriedly.
"Yes, my Lord, the name of your pa.s.sport,--Lord Glen-core. Two of those I have placed to watch beside his bed have repeated the same story, and told how he has never ceased to mutter the name to himself in his wanderings."
"Is this a mere fancy?" said the stranger, over whose sickly features a flush now mantled. "Can I see him?"
"Of course. He is in the hospital, and too ill to be removed; but if you will visit him there, I will accompany you."
It was only when a call was made upon Lord Glencore for some bodily exertion that his extreme debility became apparent. Seated at ease in a chair, his manner seemed merely that of natural coolness and apathy; he spoke as one who would not suffer his nature to be ruffled by any avoidable annoyance; but now, as he arose from his seat, and endeavored to walk, one side betrayed unmistakable signs of palsy, and his general frame exhibited the last stage of weakness.
"You see, sir, that the exertion costs its price," said he, with a sad, sickly smile. "I am the wreck of what once was a man noted for his strength."
The other muttered some words of comfort and compa.s.sion, and they descended the stairs together.
"I do not know this man," said Lord Glencore, as he gazed on the flushed and fevered face of the sick man, whose ill-trimmed and s.h.a.ggy beard gave additional wild-ness to his look; "I have never, to my knowledge, seen him before."
The accents of the speaker appeared to have suddenly struck some chord in the sufferer"s intelligence, for he struggled for an instant, and then, raising himself on his elbow, stared fixedly at him. "Not know me?" cried he, in English; ""t is because sorrow and sickness has changed me, then."
"Who are you? Tell me your name?" said Glencore, eagerly.
"I"m Billy Traynor, my Lord, the one you remember, the doctor--"
"And my boy!" screamed Glencore, wildly.
The sick man threw up both his arms in the air, and fell backward with a cry of despair; while Glencore, tottering for an instant, sank with a low groan, and fell senseless on the ground.
CHAPTER XLVII. A FRAGMENT OF A LETTER
Long before Lord Glencore had begun to rally from an attack which had revived all the symptoms of his former illness, Billy Traynor had perfectly recovered, and was a.s.siduously occupied in attending him.
Almost the first tidings which Glencore could comprehend a.s.sured him that the boy was safe, and living at Ma.s.sa under the protection of the Chevalier Stubber, and waiting eagerly for Billy to join him. A brief extract from one of the youth"s letters to his warm-hearted follower will suffice to show how he himself regarded the incident which befell, and the fortune that lay before him.
It was a long swim, of a dark night too, Master Billy; and whenever the arm of a tree would jostle me, as it floated past, I felt as though that "blessed" courier was again upon me, and turned to give fight at once.
If it were not that the river took a sudden bend as it nears the sea, I must infallibly have been carried out; but I found myself quite suddenly in slack water, and very soon after it shallowed so much that I could walk ash.o.r.e. The thought of what became of my adversary weighed more heavily on me when I touched land; indeed, while my own chances of escape were few, I took his fate easily enough. With all its dangers, it was a glorious time, as, hurrying downward in the torrent, through the dark night, the thunder growling overhead, the breakers battering away on the bar, I was the only living thing there to confront that peril!
What an emblem of my own fate in everything! A headlong course, an unknown ending, darkness--utter and day less darkness--around me, and not one single soul to say, "Courage!" There is something splendidly exciting in the notion of having felt thoughts that others have never felt,--of having set footsteps in that un tracked sand where no traveller has ever ventured. This impression never left me as I buffeted the murky waves, and struck out boldly through the surfy stream. Nay, more, it will never leave me while I live. I have now proved myself to my own heart! I have been, and for a considerable time too, face to face with death. I have regarded my fate as certain, and yet have I not quailed in spirit or flinched in coolness. No, Billy; I reviewed every step of my strange and wayward life. I bethought me of my childhood, with all its ambitious longings, and my boyish days as sorrow first broke upon me, and I felt that there was a fitness in this darksome and mysterious ending to a life that touched on no other existence. For am I not as much alone in the great world as when I swam there in the yellow flood of the Magra?
As the booming breakers of the sea met my ear, and I saw that I was nearing the wide ocean, I felt as might a soldier when charging an enemy"s battery at speed. I was wildly mad with impatience to get forward, and shouted till my voice rang out above the din around me.
How the mad cheer echoed in my own heart! It was the trumpet-call of victory.
Was it reaction from all this excitement--the depression that follows past danger--that made me feel low and miserable afterwards? I know I walked along towards Lavenza in listlessness, and when a gendarme stopped to question me, and asked for my pa.s.sport, I had not even energy to tell him how I came there. Even the intense desire to see that spot once more,--to walk that garden and sit upon that terrace,--all had left me; it was as though the waves had drowned the spirit, and left the limbs to move unguided. He led me beside the walls of the villa, by the little wicket itself, and still I felt no touch of feeling, no memory came back on me; I was indifferent to all! and yet _you_ know how many a weary mile I have come just to see them once more,--to revisit a spot where the only day-dream of my life lingered, and where I gave way to the promptings of a hope that have not often warmed this sad heart.
What a sluggish swamp has this nature of mine become, when it needs a hurricane of pa.s.sion to stir it! Here I am, living, breathing, walking, and sleeping, but without one sentiment that attaches me to existence; and yet do I feel as though whatever endangered life, or jeoparded fame would call me up to an effort and make me of some value to myself.
I went yesterday to see my old studio: sorry things were those strivings of mine,--false endeavors to realize conceptions that must have some other interpreter than marble. Forms are but weak appeals, words are coa.r.s.e ones; music alone, my dear friend, is the true voice of the heart"s meanings.
How a little melody that a peasant girl was singing last night touched me! It was one that _she_ used to warble, humming as we walked, like some stray waif thrown up by memory on the waste of life.
So then, at last, I feel I am not a sculptor; still as little, with all your teaching, am I a scholar. The world of active life offers to me none of its seductions; I only recognize what there is in it of vulgar contention and low rivalry. I cannot be any of the hundred things by which men eke out subsistence, and yet I long for the independence of being the arbiter of my own daily life. What is to become of me? Say, dearest, best of friends,--say but the word, and let me try to obey you. What of our old plans of "savagery"? The fascinations of civilized habits have made no stronger hold upon me since we relinquished that grand idea. Neither you nor I a.s.suredly have any places a.s.signed us at the feast of this old-world life; none have bidden us to it, nor have we even the fitting garments to grace it!
There are moments, however,--one of them is on me while I write,--wherein I should like to storm that strong citadel of social exclusion, and test its strength. Who are they who garrison it? Are they better, and wiser, and purer than their fellows? Are they lifted by the accidents of fortune above the casualties and infirmities of nature?
and are they more gentle-minded, more kindly-hearted, and more forgiving than others? This I should wish to know and learn for myself. Would they admit us, for the nonce, to see and judge them? let the b.a.s.t.a.r.d and the Beggar sit down at their board, and make brotherhood with them? I trow not, Billy. They would hand us over to the police!
And my friend the courier was not so far astray when he called us vagabonds!
If I were free, I should, of course, be with you; but I am under a kind of mild bondage here, of which I don"t clearly comprehend the meaning.
The chief minister has taken me, in some fashion, under his protection, and I am given to understand that no ill is intended me; and, indeed, so far as treatment and moderate liberty are concerned, I have every reason to be satisfied. Still is there something deeply wounding in all this mysterious "consideration." It whispers to me of an interest in me on the part of those who are ashamed to avow it,--of kind feelings held in check by self-esteem. Good Heavens! what have _I_ done, that this humiliation should be my portion? There is no need of any subtlety to teach me what I am, and what the world insists I must remain. There is no ambition I dare to strive for, no affection my heart may cherish, no honorable contest I may engage in, but that the utterance of one fatal word may not bar the gate against my entrance, and send me back in shame and confusion. Had I of myself incurred this penalty, there would be in me that stubborn sense of resistance that occurs to every one who counts the gain and loss of all his actions; but I have not done so! In the work of my own degradation I am blameless!
I have just been told that a certain Princess de Sabloukoff is to arrive here this evening, and that I am to wait upon her immediately. Good Heavens! can she be--? The thought has just struck me, and my head is already wandering at the bare notion of it! How I pray that this may not be so; my own shame is enough, and more than I can bear; but to witness that of--I Can you tell me nothing of this? But even if you can, the tidings will come too late; I shall have already seen her.
I am unable to write more now; my brain is burning, and my hand trembles so that I cannot trace the letters. Adieu till this evening.
Midnight.
I was all in error, dear friend. I have seen her; for the last two hours we have conversed together, and my suspicion had no foundation. She evidently knows all my history, and almost gives me to believe that one day or other I may stand free of this terrible shame that oppresses me.
If this were possible, what vengeance would be enough to wreak on those who have thus practised on me? Can you imagine any vendetta that would pay off the heart-corroding misery that has made my youth like a sorrowful old age, dried up hope within me, made my ambition to be a snare, and my love a mere mockery? I could spend a life in the search after this revenge, and think it all too short to exhaust it!
I have much to tell you of this Princess, but I doubt if I can remember it. Her manner meant so much, and yet so little; there was such elegance of expression with such perfect ease,--so much of the _finest_ knowledge of life united to a kind of hopeful trust in mankind, that I kept eternally balancing in my mind whether her intelligence or her kindliness had the supremacy. She spoke to me much of the Harleys.
Ida was well, and at Florence. She had refused Wahnsdorf"s offer of marriage, and though ardently solicited to let time test her decision, persisted in her rejection.
Whether she knew of my affection or not, I cannot say; but I opine not, for she talked of Ida as one whose haughty nature would decline alliance with even an imperial house if they deemed it a condescension; so that the refusal of Wahnsdorf may have been on this ground. But how can it matter to _me?_
I am to remain here a week, I think they said. Sir Horace Upton is coming on his way south, and wishes to see me; but you will be with me ere that time, and then we can plan our future together. As this web of intrigue--for so I cannot but feel it--draws more closely around me, I grow more and more impatient to break bounds and be away! It is evident enough that _my_ destiny is to be the sport of some accident, lucky or unlucky, in the fate of others. Shall I await this?
And they have given me money, and fine clothes, and a servant to wait upon me, and treated me like one of condition. Is this but another act of the drama, the first scene of which was an old ruined castle in Ireland? They will fail signally if they think so; a heart can be broken only once! They may even feel sorry for what they have done, but I can never forgive them for what they have made me! Come to me, dear, kind friend, as soon as you can; you little know how far your presence reconciles me to the world and to yourself!--Ever yours,
C. M.
This letter Billy Traynor read over and over as he sat by Glencore"s bedside. It was his companion in the long, dreary hours of the night, and he pondered over it as he sat in the darkened room at noonday.