Billy shook his head and laughed, and they soon afterwards parted for the night.
While young Ma.s.sy slept soundly, not a dream disturbing the calmness of his rest, Lord Glencore pa.s.sed the night in a state of feverish excitement. Led on by some strange, mysterious influence, which he could as little account for as resist, he had come back to the city where the fatal incident of his life had occurred. With what purpose, he could not tell. It was not, indeed, that he had no object in view. It was rather that he had so many and conflicting ones that they marred and destroyed each other. No longer under the guidance of calm reason, his head wandered from the past to the present and the future, disturbed by pa.s.sion and excited by injured self-love. At one moment, sentiments of sorrow and shame would take the ascendant; and at the next, a vindictive desire to follow out his vengeance and witness the ruin that he had accomplished. The unbroken, unrelieved pressure of one thought, for years and years of time, had at last undermined his reasoning powers; and every attempt at calm judgment or reflection was sure to be attended with some violent paroxysm of irrepressible rage.
There are men in whom the combative element is so strong that it usurps all their guidance, and when once they are enlisted in a contest, they cannot desist till the struggle be decided for or against them. Such was Glencore. To discover that the terrible injury he had inflicted on his wife had not crushed her nor driven her with shame from the world, aroused once more all the vindictive pa.s.sions of his nature. It was a defiance he could not withstand. Guilty or innocent, it mattered not; she had braved him,--at least so he was told,--and as such he had come to see her with his own eyes. If this was the thought which predominated in his mind, others there were that had their pa.s.sing power over him,--moments of tenderness, moments in which the long past came back again, full of softening memories; and then he would burst into tears and cry bitterly.
If he ventured to project any plan for reconciliation with her he had so cruelly wronged, he as suddenly bethought him that her spirit was not less high and haughty than his own. She had, so far as he could learn, never quailed before his vengeance; how, then, might he suppose would she act in the presence of his avowed injustice? Was it not, besides, too late to repair the wrong? Even for his boy"s sake, would it not be better if he inherited sufficient means to support an honorable life, unknown and unnoticed, than bequeath to him a name so a.s.sociated with shame and sorrow?
"Who can tell," he would cry aloud, "what my harsh treatment may not have made him? what resentment may have taken root in his young heart?
what distrust may have eaten into his nature? If I could but see him and talk with him as a stranger,--if I could be able to judge him apart from the influences that my own feelings would create,--even then, what would it avail me? I have so sullied and tarnished a proud name that he could never bear it without reproach. "Who is this Lord Glencore?" people would say. "What is the strange story of his birth? Has any one yet got at the truth? Was the father the cruel tyrant, or the mother the worthless creature, we hear tell of? Is he even legitimate, and, if so, why does he walk apart from his equals, and live without recognition by his order?" This is the n.o.ble heritage I am to leave him,--this the proud position to which he is to succeed! And yet Upton says that the boy"s rights are inalienable; that, think how I may, do what I will, the day on which I die, he is the rightful Lord Glencore. His claim may lie dormant, the proofs may be buried, but that, in truth and fact, he will be what all my subterfuge and all my falsehood cannot deny him. And then, if the day should come that he a.s.serts his right,--if, by some of those wonderful accidents that reveal the mysteries of the world, he should succeed to prove his claim,--what a memory will he cherish of _me!_ Will not every sorrow of his youth, every indignity of his manhood, be a.s.sociated with my name? Will he or can he ever forgive him who defamed the mother and despoiled the son?"
In the terrible conflict of such thoughts as these he pa.s.sed the night; intervals of violent grief or pa.s.sion alone breaking the sad connection of such reflections, till at length the worn-out faculties, incapable of further exercise, wandered away into incoherency, and he raved in all the wildness of insanity.
It was thus that Upton found him on his arrival.
CHAPTER LII. MAJOR SCARESBY"S VISIT
Down the crowded thoroughfare of the Borgo d" Ognisanti the tide of Carnival mummers poured unceasingly. Hideous masks and gay dominos, ludicrous impersonations and absurd satires on costume, abounded, and the entire population seemed to have given themselves up to merriment, and were fooling it to the top o" their bent. Bands of music and chorus-singers from the theatre filled the air with their loud strains, and carriages crowded with fantastic figures moved past, pelting the bystanders with mock sweetmeats, and covering them with showers of flour. It was a season of universal license, and, short of actual outrage, all was permitted for the time. Nor did the enjoyment of the scene seem to be confined to the poorer cla.s.ses of the people, who thus for the nonce a.s.sumed equality with their richer neighbors; but all, even to the very highest, mixed in the wild excitement of the pageant, and took the rough treatment they met with in perfect good-humor.
Dukes and princes, white from head to foot with the snowy shower, went laughingly along, and grave dignitaries were fain to walk arm-inarm with the most ludicrous monstrosities, whose gestures turned on them the laughter of all around. Occasionally--but, it must be owned, rarely--some philosopher of a sterner school might be seen pa.s.sing hurriedly along, his severe features and contemptuous glances owning to little sympathy with the mummery about him; but even _he_ had to compromise his proud disdain, and escape, as best he might, from the indiscriminate justice of the crowd. To detect one of this stamp, to follow, and turn upon him the full tide of popular fury, seemed to be the greatest triumph of the scene. When such a victim presented himself, all joined in the pursuit: nuns embraced, devils environed him, angels perched on his shoulders, mock wild boars rushed between his legs; his hat was decorated with feathers, his clothes inundated with showers of meal or flour; hackney-coachmen, dressed as ladies, fainted in his arms, and semi-naked baccha.n.a.ls pressed drink to his lips. In a word, each contributed what he might of attention to the luckless individual, whose resistance--if he were so impolitic as to make any--only increased the zest of the persecution.
An instance of this kind had now attracted general attention, nor was the amus.e.m.e.nt diminished by the discovery that he was a foreigner and an Englishman. Impertinent allusions to his nation, absurd attempts at his language, ludicrous travesties of what were supposed to be his native customs, were showered on him, in company with a hailstorm of mock bonbons and lime-pellets; till, covered with powder, and outraged beyond all endurance, he fought his way into the entrance of the Hotel d"Italie, followed by the cries and laughter of the populace.
"Cursed tomfoolery! Confounded a.s.ses!" cried he, as he found himself in a harbor of refuge. "What the devil fun can they discover in making each other dirtier than their daily habits bespeak them? I say," cried he, addressing a waiter, "is Sir Horace Upton staying here? Well, will you say Major Scaresby--be correct in the name--Major Scaresby requests to pay his respects."
"His Excellency will see you, sir," said the man, returning quickly with the reply.
From the end of a room, so darkened by closed shutters and curtains as to make all approach difficult, a weak voice called out, "Ah, Scaresby, how d" ye do? I was just thinking to myself that I could n"t be in Florence, since I had not seen you."
"You are too good, too kind, Sir Horace, to say so," said the other, with a voice whose tones by no means corresponded with the words.
"Yes, Scaresby, everything in this good city is in a manner a.s.sociated with your name. Its intrigues, its quarrels, its loves and jealousies, its mysteries, in fine, have had no such interpreter as yourself within the memory of man! What a pity there were no Scaresbys in the Cinque Cento! How sad there were none of your family here in the Medician period! What a picture might we then have had of a society fuller even than the present of moral delinquencies." There was a degree of pomposity in the manner he uttered this that served to conceal in a great measure its sarcasm.
"I am much flattered to learn that I have ever enlightened your Excellency on any subject," said the Major, dryly.
"That you have, Scaresby. I was a mere dabbler in moral toxicology when I heard your first lecture, and, I a.s.sure you, I was struck by your knowledge. And how is the dear city doing?"
"It is masquerading to-day," said Scaresby, "and, consequently, far more natural than at any other period of the whole year. Smeared faces and dirty finery,--exactly its suitable wear!"
"Who are here, Major? Any one that one knows?"
"Old Millington is here."
"The Marquis?"
"Yes, he "s here, fresh painted and lacquered; his eyes twinkling with a mock l.u.s.tre that makes him look like an old po"-chaise with a pair of new lamps!"
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Sir Horace, encouragingly.
"And then--there"s Mabworth."
"Sir Paul Mabworth?"
"Ay, the same old bore as ever! He has got off one of Burke"s speeches on the India Bill by heart, and says that he spoke it on the question of the grant for Maynooth. Oh, if poor Burke could only look up!"
"Look down! you ought to say, Scaresby; depend upon"t, he "s not on the Opposition benches still!"
"I hate the fellow," said Scaresby, whose ill-temper was always augmented by any attempted smartness of those he conversed with. "He has taken Walmsley"s cook away from him, and never gives any one a dinner."
"That is shameful; a perfect dog in the manger!"
"Worse; he "s a dog without any manger! For he keeps his house on board-wages, and there"s literally nothing to eat! That poor thing, Strejowsky."
"Oh, Olga Strejowsky, do you mean? What of her?"
"Why, there"s another husband just turned up. They thought he was killed in the Caucasus, but he was only pa.s.sing a few years in Siberia; and so he has come back, and claims all the emeralds. You remember, of course, that famous necklace, and the great drops! They belonged once to the Empress Catherine, but Mabworth says that he took the concern with all its dependencies; he "ll give up his bargain, but make no compromise."
"She"s growing old, I fancy."
"She"s younger than the Sabloukoff by five good years, and they tell me _she_ plays Beauty to this hour."
Ah, Scaresby, had you known what words were these you have just uttered, or had you only seen the face of him who heard them, you had rather bitten your tongue off than suffered it to fashion them!
"Brignolles danced with her at that celebrated _fete_ given by the Prince of Orleans something like eight-and-thirty years ago."
"And how is the dear Duke?" asked Upton, sharply.
"Just as you saw him at the Court of Louis XVIII.; he swaggers a little more as he gets more feeble about the legs, and he shows his teeth when he laughs, more decidedly since his last journey to Paris. Devilish clever fellows these modern dentists are! He wants to marry; I suppose you "ve heard it."
"Not a word of it. Who is the happy fair?"
"The Nina, as they call her now. She was one of the Delia Torres, who married, or didn"t marry, Glencore. Don"t you remember him? He was Colonel of the Eleventh, and a devil of a martinet he was."
"I remember him," said Upton, dryly.
"Well, he ran off with one of those girls, and some say they were married at Capri,--as if it signified what happened at Capri! She was a deuced good-looking girl at the time,--a coquette, you know,--and Glencore was one of those stiff English fellows that think every man is making up to his wife; he drank besides."
"No, pardon me, there you are mistaken. I knew him intimately; Glencore was as temperate as myself."
"I have it from Lowther, who used to take him home at night; _he_ said Glencore never went to bed sober! At all events, she hated him, and detested his miserly habits."
"Another mistake, my dear Major. Glencore was never what is called a rich man, but he was always a generous one!"
"I suppose you"ll not deny that he used to thrash her? Ay, and with a horsewhip too!"
"Come, come, Scaresby; this is really too coa.r.s.e for mere jesting."
"Jest? By Jove! it was very bitter earnest. She told Brignolles all about it. I "m not sure she didn"t show him the marks."