Gerald Fitzgerald: The Chevalier Part 33

'And this is Ireland?' said Caraffa, as he bent over a map and gazed on the small spot which represented the island. 'How small it looks, and how far away!'

CHAPTER II. A DEATH-BED

It was at the close of a sultry day that a sick man, wan, pale, and almost voiceless, sat propped up by pillows, and seeming to drink in with a sort of effort the faint breeze that entered by an open window.

A large bouquet of fresh flowers stood in a vase beside him, and on the bed itself moss-roses and carnations were scattered, their gorgeous tints terribly in contrast to the sickly pallor of that visage on which death had already placed its stamp. It would have puzzled the wiliest physiognomist to have read that strange and strongly-marked face; for while the ma.s.sive head and strong brow, the yet brilliant eye and contracted eyebrow, denoted energy and daring, there was a faint smile, inexpressibly sad and weary-looking, on the mouth, that seemed to bespeak a heart that had experienced many an emotion, and ended by finding 'all barren.'

A long, low sigh escaped him as he lay, and in his utter weariness his hands dropped listlessly, one falling over the side of the bed. The watchful nurse, who, in the dress of her order as a Sister of Charity, sat nigh, arose and leaned over to regard him.

'No, Constance, not yet,' said he, smiling faintly, and answering the unspoken thought that was pa.s.sing in her mind; 'not yet; but very near--very near indeed. What hour is it?'

'St. Roch has just chimed half-past seven,' replied she calmly.

'Open the window wider; there is a little air stirring.'

'No; the evening is very still, but it will be fresher by and by.'

'I shall not need it,' said he, more faintly, though with perfect calm.

'Before midnight, Constance--before midnight it will be the same to me if it breathed a zephyr or blew a gale: where I am going it will do neither.'

'Oh, Citizen, can I not persuade you to see the Pere Dulaque or the Cure of St. Roch? Your minutes are few here now, and I implore you not to waste them.'

''Tis so that I intend, my worthy friend,' said he calmly. 'Had either of these excellent men you mention made the voyage I am now going, I would speak to them willingly; but remember, Constance, it is a sea without a chart.'

'Say not so in the face of that blessed Book----'

'Nay, nay, do not disturb my few moments of calm. How sweet those flowers are! How balmy that little air that now stirs the leaves! Oh, what a fair world it is, or rather it might be! Do not sigh so heavily, Constance; remember what I told you yesterday; our belief is like our loyalty--it is independent of us.'

'Let some holy man at least speak to you.'

'Why should I shock his honest faith? Why should he disturb my peace.

Know, woman,' added he, more energetically, 'that I have striven harder to attain this same faith than ever you have done to resist a heresy.

I needed it a thousand times more than you; I 'd have done more to gain it--clung closer to it when won too.'

'What did you do?' asked she boldly.

'I read, reflected, pondered years long--disputed, discussed, read more--inquired wherever I hoped to meet enlightenment.'

'You never prayed,' said she meekly.

'Prayed! How should I--not knowing for what, or to whom?'

An exclamation--almost a cry--escaped the woman, and her lips were seen to move rapidly, as if in prayer. The sick man seemed to respect the sentiment of devotion that he could not bring himself to feel, and was silent. At last he said, in a voice of much sweetness, 'Your patient care and kindness are not the less dear to me that I ascribe them to a source your humility would reject. I believe in human nature, my good Constance, though of a verity it has given me strong lessons not to be over-sanguine.'

'Who has had more friends?' began she; but he stopped her short at once by a contemptuous gesture with his hand, while he said--

'Men are your friends in life as they are your companions on a journey--so long as your road lies in the same direction they will travel with you. To bear with your infirmities, to take count of your trials, and make allowance for your hardships; to find out what of good there is in you, and teach you to fertilise it for yourself; to discern the soil of your nature, expel its weeds, and still to be hopeful--this is friendship. But it never comes from a brother man; it is a woman alone can render it. Who is it that knocks there?' asked he quickly.

She went to the door and speedily returned with the answer--

'It is the same youth who was here yesterday, and refused to give his name. He is still most urgent in his demand to see you.'

'Does he know what he asks--that I am on the eve of a long journey, and must needs have my thoughts engaged about the road before me?'

'I told him you were very ill--very ill indeed; that even your dearest friends only saw you for a few minutes at a time; but he persisted in a.s.serting that if you knew he was there, you would surely see him.'

'Let his perseverance have its reward. Tell him to come in.'

The sister returned to the door, and after a whispered word to the stranger, enforcing caution in his interview, admitted him, and pointing to the bed where the sick man lay, she retired.

If the features and gestures of the stranger, as he moved silently across the room, denoted the delicacy of a certain refinement, his dress bespoke great poverty; his clothes were ragged, his shoes in tatters, and even the red woollen cap which he had just removed from his head was patched in several places.

The sick man motioned to him to stand where the light would fall upon him strongly; and then, having stared steadfastly at him for several minutes, he sighed drearily, and said, 'What have you with me?'

'Don't you remember me, then, Signor Gabriel?' asked the young man, in a tone of deep agitation. 'Don't you remember Fitzgerald?'

'The boy of the Maremma--the Garde du Corps--the favourite of the Queen--the postilion on the flight to Va-rennes--the secret letter-carrier to the Temple----'

'Speak lower, Monsieur! speak lower, I beseech you,' interposed the other. 'If I were betrayed, my life is not worth an hour's purchase.'

'And is it worth preserving in such a garb as that? I thought you had been an apter scholar, Gerald, and that ere this you had found your way to fortune. The Prince de Conde wrote me that you were his trustiest agent.'

'And it is on a mission from him that I am here this day. I have been waiting for weeks long to see and speak with you. I knew that you were ill, and could find no means to approach you.'

'You come too late, my friend--too late,' said Mirabeau, sighing: 'Royalist, Girondin, Bourbon, or the Mountain, they are all illusions now!'

'The great principles of justice are not an illusion, sir; the idea of Right is immutable and immortal!'

'I know of nothing that does not change and die,' said Mirabeau gravely; then added, 'But what would you with me?'

'I have not courage to disturb your suffering sick-bed with cares you can no longer feel. I had not imagined I should have found you so ill as this.'

'Sick unto death--if you can tell me what death means,' said the other with a strange smile.

'They who sent me,' resumed Gerald, not heeding his last remark, 'believed you in all the vigour of health as of intellect. They have watched with almost breathless interest the glorious conflict you have long maintained against the men of anarchy and the guillotine; they have recognised in you the one sole man, of all the nation, who can save France----'

The sick man smiled sadly, and laying his wasted fingers on Gerald's arm, said, 'It is not to be done!'

'Do you mean, sir, that it is the will of the great Providence who rules us that this mighty people should sink under the tyranny of a few bloodthirsty wretches?'

'I spoke not of France; I spoke of the Monarchy, said Mirabeau. 'Look at those flowers there: in a few hours hence they will have lost their odour and their colour. Now, all your memory--be it ever so good--will not replace these to your senses. Go tell your master that his hour has struck. Monarchy was once a Faith; it will henceforth be but a Superst.i.tion.'

'And is a just right like this to be abandoned?'

'No. The stranger may place them on the throne they have lost; and if they be wise enough to repay the service with ingrat.i.tude, a few more years of this mock rule may be eked out.'

'Would that I had power to tell you all our plans, and you the strength to listen to me!' cried Gerald: 'you would see that what they purpose is no puny enterprise; nor what they aim at, a selfish conquest.'