"Failings! perhaps," said he, dubiously; "but they are, after all, mere weaknesses,--such as a liking for splendor, a love of luxury generally, a taste for profusion, a sort of regal profusion in daily life, which occasionally jars with my circ.u.mstances, making me--not irritable, I am never irritable--but low-spirited and depressed."
"Then, from what you have told me, I think I"d better say to Mrs. Butler that there "s an angel waiting outside who is most anxious to make her acquaintance."
"Do so; and add that he "ll fold his wings, and sit on this stone till you come to fetch him."
"_Au revoir_, Gabriel, then," said she, pa.s.sing in at the wicket, and taking her way through the little garden.
Maitland sat discussing in his own mind the problem how far Alcibiades was right or wrong in endeavoring to divert the world from any criticism of himself by a certain alteration in his dog"s tail, rather opining that, in our day at least, the wiser course would have been to avoid all comment whatsoever,--the imputation of an eccentricity being only second to the accusation of a crime. With the Greeks of that day the false scent was probably a success; with the English of ours, the real wisdom is not to be hunted. "Oh, if it were all to be done again, how very differently I should do it!"
"Indeed, and in what respect?" said a voice behind his shoulder. He looked up, and saw Beck Graham gazing on him with something of interest in her expression. "How so?" cried she, again. Not in the slightest degree discomposed or flurried, he lay lazily back on the sward, and drawing his hand over his eyes to shade them from the sun, said, in a half-languid, weary tone, "If it were to do again, I "d go in for happiness."
"What do you mean by happiness?"
"What we all mean by it: an organized selfishness, that draws a close cordon round our home, and takes care to keep out, so far as possible, duns, bores, fevers, and fashionable acquaintances. By the way, is your visit ended, or will she see me?"
"Not to-day. She hopes to-morrow to be able. She asks if you are of the Maitlands of Gillie--Gillie--not "crankie," but a sound like it,--and if your mother"s name was Janet."
"And I trust, from the little you know of me, you a.s.sured her it could not be," said he, calmly.
"Well, I said that I knew no more of your family than all the rest of us up at the Abbey, who have been sifting all the Maitlands in the three kingdoms in the hope of finding you."
"How flattering! and at the same time how vain a labor! The name came to me with some fortune. I took it as I "d have taken a more ill-sounding one for money! Who wouldn"t be baptized in bank stock? I hope it"s not on the plea of my mother being Janet, that she consents to receive me?"
"She hopes you are Lady Janet"s son, and that you have the Maitland eyes, which it seems are dark, and a something in their manner which she a.s.sures me was especially captivating."
"And for which, I trust, you vouched?"
"Yes. I said you were a clever sort of person, that could do a number of things well, and that I for one did n"t quarrel with your vanity or conceit, but thought them rather good fun."
"So they are! and we "ll laugh at them together," said he, rising, and preparing to set out "What a blessing to find one that really understands me! I wish to heaven that you were not engaged!"
"And who says I am?" cried she, almost fiercely.
"Did I dream it? Who knows? The fact is, my dear Miss Becky, we do talk with such a rare freedom to each other, it is pardonable to mix up one"s reveries with his actual information. How do you call that ruin yonder?"
"Dunluce."
"And that great bluff beyond it?"
"Fairhead."
"I "ll take a long walk to-morrow, and visit that part of the coast."
"You are forgetting you are to call on Mrs. Butler."
"So I was. At what hour are we to be here?"
"There is no question of "we" in the matter; your modesty must make its advances alone."
"You are not angry with me, _cariasima_ Rebecca?"
"Don"t think that a familiarity is less a liberty because it is dressed in a foreign tongue."
"But it would "out;" the expression forced itself from my lips in spite of me, just as some of the sharp things you have been saying to me were perfectly irrepressible?"
"I suspect you like this sort of sparring?"
"Delight in it"
"So do I. There"s only one condition I make: whenever you mean to take off the gloves, and intend to hit out hard, that you "ll say so before.
Is that agreed?"
"It"s a bargain."
She held out her hand frankly, and he took it as cordially; and in a hearty squeeze the compact was ratified.
"Shall I tell you," said she, as they drew nigh the Abbey, "that you are a great puzzle to us all here? We none of us can guess how so great a person as yourself should condescend to come down to such an out-o"-the-world spot, and waste his fascinations on such dull company."
"Your explanation, I "ll wager, was the true one: let me hear it."
"I called it eccentricity; the oddity of a man who had traded so long in oddity that he grew to be inexplicable, even to himself, and that an Irish country-house was one of the few things you had not "done," and that you were determined to "do" it."
"There was that, and something more," said Maitland, thoughtfully.
"The "something more" being, I take it, the whole secret."
"As you read me like a book, Miss Rebecca, all I ask is, that you "ll shut the volume when you "ve done with it, and not talk over it with your literary friends."
"It is not my way," said she, half pettishly; and they reached the door as she spoke.
CHAPTER VIII. SOME EXPLANATIONS
If there was anything strange or inexplicable in the appearance of one of Maitland"s pretensions in an unfrequented and obscure part of the world,--if there was matter in it to puzzle the wise heads of squires, and make country intelligences look confused,--there is no earthly reason why any mystification should be practised with our reader. He, at least, is under our guidance, and to him we impart whatever is known to ourselves. For a variety of reasons, some of which this history later on will disclose,--others, the less imminent, we are free now to avow,--Mr.
Norman Maitland had latterly addressed much of his mind to the political intrigues of a foreign country: that country was Naples. He had known it--we are not free to say how, at this place--from his childhood; he knew its people in every rank and cla.s.s; he knew its dialect in all its idioms. He could talk the slang of the lazzaroni, and the wild _patois_ of Calabria, just as fluently as that composite language which the King Ferdinand used, and which was a blending of the vulgarisms of the Chiaja with the Frenchified chit-chat of the Court. There were events happening in Italy which, though not for the moment involving the question of Naples, suggested to the wiser heads in that country the sense of a coming peril. We cannot, at this place, explain how or why Maitland should have been a sharer in these deeds; it is enough to say that he was one of a little knot who had free access to the palace, and enjoyed constant intercourse with the king,--free to tell him of all that went on in his brilliant capital of vice and levity, to narrate its duels, its defalcations, its intrigues, its family scandals and domestic disgraces,--to talk of anything and everything but one: not a word on politics was to escape them; never in the most remote way was a syllable to drop of either what was happening in the State, or what comments the French or English press might pa.s.s on it. No allusion was to escape on questions of government, nor the name of a minister to be spoken, except he were the hero of some notorious scandal. All these precautions could not stifle fear. The menials had seen the handwriting on the wall before Belshazzar"s eyes had fallen on it. The men who stood near the throne saw that it rocked already. There was but one theme within the palace,--the fidelity of the army; and every rude pa.s.sage between the soldiery and the people seemed to testify to that faithfulness. Amongst those who were supposed to enjoy the sovereign confidence--for none in reality possessed it--was the Count Caffarelli, a man of very high family and large fortune; and though not in the slightest degree tinctured with Liberalism in politics, one of the very few Neapolitan n.o.bles who either understood the drift, or estimated the force of the party of action. He foresaw the coming struggle, and boded ill of its result. With Mr. Maitland he lived in closest intimacy. The Italian, though older than the Englishman, had been his companion in years of dissipation. In every capital of Europe these two men had left traditions of extravagance and excess. They had an easy access to the highest circles in every city, and it was their pleasure to mix in all, even to the lowest Between them there had grown what, between such men, represented a strong friendship,--that is, either would readily have staked his life or his fortune; in other words, have fought a duel, or paid the play-debts of the other. Each knew the exact rules of honor which guided the conduct of the other, and knew, besides, that no other principles than these held any sway or influence over him.
Caffarelli saw that the Bourbon throne was in danger, and with it the fortunes of all who adhered to the dynasty. If all his prejudices and sympathies were with monarchy, these would not have prevented him from making terms with the revolution, if he thought the revolution could be trusted; but this was precisely what he did not, could not believe.
"_Ceux qui sont Bleus restent Bleus_" said the first Napoleon; and so Caffarelli a.s.sured himself that a _canaille_ always would be a _canaille_. Philip egalite was a case in point of what came of such concessions; therefore he decided it was better to stand by the monarchy, and that real policy consisted in providing that there should be a monarchy to stand by.
To play that mock game of popularity, the being cheered by the lazzaroni, was the extent of toleration to which the king could be persuaded. Indeed, he thought these _vivas_ the hearty outburst of a fervent and affectionate loyalty; and many of his Ministers appeared to concur with him. Caffarelli, who was Master of the Horse, deemed otherwise, and confessed to Maitland that, though a.s.sa.s.sination was cheap enough in the quarter of Santa Lucia, there was a most indiscriminating indifference as to who might be the victim, and that the old Marquess of Montanara, the Prefect of the Palace, would not cost a _carlino_ more than the veriest follower of Mazzini.
Both Caffarelli and Maitland enjoyed secret sources of information. They were members of that strange league which has a link in every grade and cla.s.s of Neapolitan society, and makes the very highest in station the confidant and the accomplice of the most degraded and the meanest This sect, called La Camorra, was originally a mere system of organized extortion, driving, by force of menace, an impost on every trade and occupation, and exacting its dues by means of agents well known to be capable of the greatest crimes. Caffarelli, who had long employed its services to a.s.sist him in his intrigues or accomplish his vengeances, was a splendid contributor to its resources. He was rich and munificent; he loved profusion, but he adored it when it could be made the mainspring of some dark and mysterious machinery. Though the Camorra was not in the remotest degree political, Caffarelli learned, through its agency, that the revolutionary party were hourly gaining strength and courage. They saw the growing discontent that spread abroad about the ruling dynasty, and they knew how little favor would be shown the Bourbons by the Western Powers, whose counsels had been so flatly rejected, and whose warnings despised. They felt that their hour was approaching, and that Northern Italy would soon hasten to their aid if the work of overthrow were once fairly begun. Their only doubts were lest the success, when achieved, should have won nothing for them. It may be as in Forty-eight, said they; we may drive the king out of Naples as we drove the Austrians out of Milan, and, after all, only be conquering a larger kingdom for the House of Savoy. Hence they hesitated and held back; nor were their fears causeless. For what had revolution poured forth its blood like water in Paris? To raise up the despotism of the Second Empire!
Caffarelli was in possession of all this; he knew what they hoped and wished and feared. The Camorra itself numbered many professed revolutionists ("Reds," as they liked to be called) in its sect, but was itself untinctured by politics. The wily Count thought that it was a pity so good an organization should be wasted on mere extortion and robbery. There were higher crimes they might attain to, and grander interests they might subserve. Never, perhaps, was the world of Europe so much in the hands of a few powerful men. Withdraw from it, say, half a dozen,--one could name them at once,--and what a change might come over the Continent! Caffarelli was no a.s.sa.s.sin; but there are men, and he was one of them, that can trifle with great crimes, just as children play with fire; who can jest with them, laugh at them, and sport with them, till, out of mere familiarity, they forget the horror they should inspire and the penalty they enforce. He had known Orsini intimately, and liked him; nor did he talk of his memory with less affection that he had died beneath the guillotine. He would not himself engage in a crime that would dishonor his name; but he knew there were a great number of people in the world who could no more be punctilious about honor than about the linen they wore,--fellows who walked in rags and dined off garlic. Why should they stick at trifles? _They_ had no n.o.ble escutcheons to be tarnished, no splendid names, no high lineage to be disgraced. In fact, there were crimes that became them, just as certain forms of labor suited them. They worked with their hands in each case.
Amongst the Camorra he knew many such. The difficulty was to bring the power of the sect to bear upon the questions that engaged him. It would not have been difficult to make them revolutionists,--the one word "pillage" would have sufficed for that; the puzzle was how to make them royalists. Mere pay would not do. These fellows had got a taste for irregular gain. To expect to win them over by pay, or retain them by discipline, was to hope to convert a poacher by inviting him to a battue. Caffarelli had revolved the matter very long and carefully; he had talked it over scores of times with Maitland. They agreed that the Camorra had great capabilities, if one only could use them. Through the members of that league in the army they had learned that the troops, the long-vaunted reliance of the monarchy, could not be trusted. Many regiments were ready to take arms with the Reds; many more would disband and return to their homes. As for the navy, they declared there was not one ship"s company would stand by the Sovereign. The most well-affected would be neutral; none save the foreign legions would fight for the king. The question then was, to reinforce these, and at once,--a matter far more difficult than it used to be. Switzerland would no longer permit this recruitment. Austria would give none but her criminals.
America, it was said, abounded in ardent adventurous spirits that would readily risk life in pursuit of fortune; but then the cause was not one which, by any ingenuity, could be made to seem that of liberty. Nothing then remained but Ireland. There there was bravery and poverty both; thousands, who had no fears and very little food, ready for any enterprise, but far readier for one which could be dignified as being the battle of the Truth and the cause of the Holy Father.