"Take my word for it, Scaresby," said Upton, dropping his voice to a low but measured tone, "this is a base calumny, and the Duke of Brignolles no more circulated such a story than I did. He is a man of honor, and utterly incapable of it."
"I can only repeat that I believe it to be perfectly true!" said Scaresby, calmly. "n.o.body here ever doubted the story."
"I cannot say what measure of charity accompanies your zeal for truth in this amiable society, Scaresby, but I can repeat my a.s.sertion that this must be a falsehood."
"You will find it very hard, nevertheless, to bring any one over to your opinion," retorted the unappeasable Major. "He was a fellow everybody hated; proud and supercilious to all, and treated his wife"s relations--who were of far better blood than himself--as though they were _canaille_."
A loud crash, as if of something heavy having fallen, here interrupted their colloquy, and Upton sprang from his seat and hastened into the adjoining room. Close beside the door--so close that he almost fell over it in entering--lay the figure of Lord Glencore. In his efforts to reach the door he had fainted, and there he lay,--a cold, clammy sweat covering his livid features, and his bloodless lips slightly parted.
It was almost an hour ere his consciousness returned; but when it did, and he saw Upton alone at his bedside, he pressed his hand within his own, and said, "I heard it all, Upton, every word! I tried to reach the room; I got out of bed--and was already at the door--when my brain reeled, and my heart grew faint It may have been malady, it might be pa.s.sion,--I know not; but I saw no more. He is gone,--is he not?" cried he, in a faint whisper.
"Yes, yes,--an hour ago; but you will think nothing of what he said, when I tell you his name. It was Scaresby,--Major Scaresby; one whose bad tongue is the one solitary claim by which he subsists in a society of slanderers!"
"And he is gone!" repeated the other, in a tone of deep despondency.
"Of course he is. I never saw him since; but be a.s.sured of what I have just told you, that his libels carry no reproach. He is a calumniator by temperament."
"I "d have shot him, if I could have opened the door," muttered Glencore between his teeth; but Upton heard the words distinctly. "What am I to this man," cried he, aloud, "or he to me, that I am to be arraigned by him on charges of any kind, true or false? What accident of fortune makes him my judge? Tell me that, sir. Who has appealed to him for protection? Who has demanded to be righted at his hand?"
"Will you not hear me, Glencore, when I say that his slanders have no sting? In the circles wherein he mixes, it is the mere scandal that amuses; for its veracity, there is not one that cares. You, or I, or some one else, supply the name of an actor in a disreputable drama, the plot of which alone interests, not the performer."
"And am I to sit tamely down under this degradation?" exclaimed Glencore, pa.s.sionately. "I have never subscribed to this dictation.
There is little, indeed, of life left to me, but there is enough, perhaps, to vindicate myself against men of this stamp. You shall take him a message from me; you shall tell him by what accident I overheard his discoveries."
"My dear Glencore, there are graver interests, far worthier cares, than any this man"s name can enter into, which should now engage you."
"I say he shall have my provocation, and that within an hour!" cried Glencore, wildly.
"You would give this man and his words a consequence that neither have ever possessed," said Upton, in a mild and subdued tone. "Remember, Glencore, when I left with you this morning that paper of Stubber"s it was with a distinct understanding that other and wiser thoughts than those of vengeance were to occupy your attention. I never scrupled to place it in your hands; I never hesitated about confiding to you what in a lawyer"s phrase would be a proof against you. When an act of justice was to be done, I would not stain it by the faintest shadow of coercion.
I left you free, I leave you still free, from everything but the dictates of your own honor."
Glencore made no reply, but the conflict of his thoughts seemed to agitate him greatly.
"The man who has pursued a false path in life," said Upton, calmly, "has need of much courage to retrace his steps; but courage is not the quality you fail in, Glencore, so that I appeal to you with confidence."
"I have need of courage," muttered Glencore; "you say truly. What was it the doctor said this morning,--aneurism?"
Upton moved his head with an inclination barely perceptible.
"What a Nemesis there is in nature," said Glencore, with a sickly attempt to smile, "that pa.s.sion should beget malady! I never knew, physically speaking, that I had a heart--till it was broken. So that,"
resumed he, in a more agreeable tone, "death may ensue at any moment--on the least excitement?"
"He warned you gravely on that point," said Upton, cautiously.
"How strange that I should have come through that trial of an hour ago!
It was not that the struggle did not move me. I could have torn that fellow limb from limb, Upton, if I had but the strength! But see," cried he, feebly, "what a poor wretch I am; I cannot close these fingers!"
and he held out a worn and clammy hand as he spoke. "Do with me as you will," said he, after a pause; "I ought to have followed your counsels long ago!"
Upton was too subtle an anatomist of human motives to venture by even the slightest word to disturb a train of thought which any interference could only damage. As the other still continued to meditate, and, by his manner and look, in a calmer and more reflective spirit, the wily diplomatist moved noiselessly away, and left him alone.
CHAPTER LIII. A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME
From the gorgeous halls of the Pitti Palace down to the humblest chamber in Camaldole, Florence was a scene of rejoicing. As night closed in, the crowds seemed only to increase, and the din and clamor to grow louder.
It seemed as though festivity and joy had overflowed from the houses, filling the streets with merry-makers. In the clear cold air, groups feasted, and sang, and danced, all mingling and intermixing with a freedom that showed how thoroughly the spirit of pleasure-seeking can annihilate the distinctions of cla.s.s. The soiled and tattered mummer leaned over the carriage-door and exchanged compliments with the masked d.u.c.h.ess within. The t.i.tled n.o.ble of a dozen quarterings stopped to pledge a merry company who pressed him to drain a gla.s.s of Monte Pulciano with them. There was a perfect fellowship between those whom fortune had so widely separated, and the polished accents of high society were heard to blend with the quaint and racy expressions of the "people."
Theatres and palaces lay open, all lighted "_a giorno_." The whole population of the city surged and swayed to and fro like a mighty sea in motion, making the air resound the while with a wild mixture of sounds, wherein music and laughter were blended. Amid the orgie, however, not an act, not a word of rudeness, disturbed the general content. It was a season of universal joy, and none dared to destroy the spell of pleasure that presided.
Our task is not to follow the princely equipages as they rolled in unceasing tides within the marble courts, nor yet to track the strong flood that poured through the wide thoroughfares in all the wildest exuberance of their joy.
Our business is with two travellers, who, well weary of being for hours a-foot, and partly sated with pleasure, sat down to rest themselves on a bench beside the Arno.
"It is glorious fooling, that must be owned, Billy," said Charles Ma.s.sy, "and the spirit is most contagious. How little have you or I in common with these people! We scarce can catch the accents of the droll allusions, we cannot follow the strains of their rude songs, and yet we are carried away like the rest to feel a wild enjoyment in all this din, and glitter, and movement. How well they do it, too!"
"That"s all by rayson of concentration," said "Billy, gravely. "They are highly charged with fun. The ould adage says, "Non semper sunt Saturnalia,"--It is not every day Morris kills a cow."
"Yet it is by this very habit of enjoyment that they know how to be happy."
"To be sure it is," cried Billy; "_they_ have a ritual for it which _we_ have n"t; as Cicero tells us, "In jucundis nullum periculum." But ye see we have no notion of any amus.e.m.e.nt without a dash of danger through it, if not even cruelty!"
"The French know how to reconcile the two natures; they are brave, and light-hearted too."
"And the Irish, Mister Charles,--the Irish especially," said Billy, proudly; "for I was alludin" to the English in what I said last. The "versatile ingenium" is all our own.
He goes into a tent and he spends half a-crown, Comes out, meets a friend, and for love knocks him down.
There "s an elegant philosophy in that, now, that a Saxon would never see! For it is out of the very fulness of the heart, ye may remark, that Pat does this, just as much as to say, "I don"t care for the expense!"
He smashes a skull just as he would a whole dresser of crockery-ware!
There"s something very grand in that recklessness."
The tone of the remark, and a certain wild energy of his manner, showed that poor Billy"s faculties were slightly under the influences of the Tuscan grape; and the youth smiled at sight of an excess so rare.
"How hard it must be," said Ma.s.sy, "to go back to the workaday routine of life after one of these outbursts,--to resume not alone the drudgery, but all the slavish observances that humble men yield to great ones!"
""Tis what Bacon says, "There"s nothing so hard as unlearnin" anything;"
and the proof is how few of us ever do it! We always go on mucin" old thoughts with new,--puttin" different kinds of wine into the same gla.s.s, and then wonderin" we are not invigorated!"
"You "re in a mood for moralizing to-night, I see, Billy," said the other, smiling.
"The levities of life always puts me on that thrack, just as too bright a day reminds me to take out an umbrella with me."
"Yet I do not see that all your observation of the world has indisposed you to enjoy it, or that you take harsher views of life the closer you look at it."
"Quite the reverse; the more I see of mankind, the more I "m struck with the fact that the very wickedest and worst can"t get rid of remorse!
"Tis something out of a man"s nature entirely--something that dwells outside of him--sets him on to commit a crime; and then he begins to rayson and dispute with the temptation, just like one keepin" bad company, and listenin" to impure notions and evil suggestions day after day; as he does this, he gets to have a taste for that kind of low society,--I mane with his own bad thoughts,--till at last every other ceases to amuse him. Look! what"s that there; where are they goin" with all the torches there?" cried he, suddenly, springing up and pointing to a dense crowd that pa.s.sed along the street. It was a band of music, dressed in a quaint mediaeval costume, on its way to serenade some palace.
"Let us follow and listen to them, Billy," said the youth; and they arose and joined the throng.