Gerald Fitzgerald: The Chevalier Part 44

CHAPTER X. THE CARDINAL AT HIS DEVOTIONS

If the night which followed the interview of the Pere Ma.s.soni with Carrol was one of deep anxiety, the morning did not bring any relief to his cares. His first duty was to ask after Fitzgerald. The youth had slept little, but lay tranquil and uncomplaining, and to all seeming indifferent either as to the strange place or the strange faces around him. The keen-eyed servant, Giacomo, himself an humble member of the order, quickly detected that he was suffering under some mental shock, and that the case was one where the mere physician could afford but little benefit.

'He lies there quiet as a child,' said he, 'never speaking nor moving, his eyelids half drooped over his eyes, and save that now and then, at long intervals, he breathes a low, faint sigh, you would scarce believe he was alive.'

'I will see him,' said the Pere, as he gently opened the door, and stole noiselessly across the room. A faint streak of light peering between the drawn window-curtains, fell directly on the youth's face, showing it pale and emotionless, as Giacomo described it. As the Pere seated himself by the bedside, he purposely made a slight noise, to attract the other's attention, but Gerald did not notice him, not even turning a look toward him. Ma.s.soni laid his finger on the pulse, the action was weak but regular; nothing to denote fever or excitement, only the evidence of great exhaustion or debility.

'I have come to hear how you have rested,' said the Pere, in an accent he could render soft as a woman's, 'and to welcome you to Rome.'

A faint, very faint, smile was all the reply to this speech.

'I am aware that you have gone through much suffering and peril,'

continued the Pere, 'but with rest and kind care you will soon be well again. You are among friends, who are devoted to you.'

A gentle movement of the brows, as if in a.s.sent, replied.

'It may be that speaking would distress you; perhaps even my own words fatigue you. If so I will be satisfied to come and sit silently beside you, till you are stronger and better.'

'Si--si,' muttered Gerald faintly, and at the same time he essayed to smile as it were in recognition.

A quick convulsive twitch of impatience pa.s.sed across the Pere's pale face, but so rapidly that it seemed a spasm, and the features were the next moment calm as before; and now Ma.s.soni sat silently gazing on the tranquil lineaments before him. Among the various studies of his laborious life medicine had not been neglected, and now he addressed himself to examine the condition and study the symptoms of the youth.

The case was not of much bodily ailment, at least save in the exhaustion which previous illness had left. There was nothing like malady, but there were signs of a mischief far deeper, more subtle, and less curable than mere physical ills. The look of vacancy--the half-meaning smile--the dull languor, not alone in feature but in the way he lay--all presented matter for grave and weighty fears. The very presence of these signs, unaccompanied by ailment, gave a gloomier aspect to the case, and led the Pere to reflect whether such traits had any connection with descent. The strong resemblance which the young man bore to the Stuarts--and there were few families where the distinctive traits were more marked--induced Ma.s.soni to consider the question with reference to _them_. They are indeed a race whose wayward impulses and rash resolves took oftentimes but little guidance of reason; but these were mere signs of eccentricity and not insanity. But might not the one be precursor to the other; might not the frail judgment, which sufficed for the every-day cares of life, utterly give way in seasons of greater trial?

Thus reasoning and communing with himself he sat till the hour struck which apprised him of his audience with the Cardinal.

It was not yet the season when Rome was filled by its higher cla.s.ses, and Ma.s.soni could repair to the palace of the Cardinal without any of the secrecy observable at other periods. Still he deemed it more in accordance with the humility he affected to seek admission by a small garden gate, which opened on the Pincian hill. The little portal admitted him into a garden such as only Italy possesses. The gardens of England are unrivalled for their peculiar excellence, for the exquisite flavour of their fruit, and in their perfection of order and neatness they stand unequalled in the world; the trim quaintness of the Dutch taste has also its special beauty, and nowhere can be seen such gorgeous colouring in flower-pots, such splendour of tulip and ranunculus: but there is in Italy a rich blending of culture and wildness--a mingled splendour and simplicity, just as in the great halls of the marble palace on the Neva, where the haughtiest n.o.ble in his diamond pelisse, stands side by side with the simple Boyard in his furs: so in the *

golden land,' the cactus and the mimosa, the orange and the pear-tree, the cedar of Lebanon and the stone-pine of the north, are commingled and interleaved; all signs of a soil which can supply nourishment to the rarest and most delicate, as well as to the hardiest of plants.

In this lovely wilderness, with many a group in marble, many a beautifully-carved fountain, many an ornamental shrine, half hidden in its leafy recesses, the Pere now walked, screening his steps as he went, from that great range of windows which opened on a grand terrace--a precaution rather the result of habit than called for by the circ.u.mstance of the time. A fish-pond of some extent, with a small island> occupied the centre of the garden; the island itself being ornamented by a beautiful little shrine dedicated to our Lady of Rimini, the birth-place of the Cardinal. To this sacred spot his Eminence was accustomed to repair for secret worship each morning of his life. As a measure of respectful reverence for the great man's devotions, the place was studiously secluded from all intrusion, and even strangers--admitted, as at rare intervals they were, to visit the gardens--were never suffered to invade the sacred precincts of the island.

A strangely contrived piece of mechanism appended to the little wicket that formed the entrance always sufficed to show if his Eminence was engaged in prayer, and consequently removed from all pretext of interruption. This was an apparatus, by which the face of a beautifully painted Madonna became suddenly covered by a veil, a signal that none of the Cardinal's nearest of blood would have dared to violate. It was, indeed, to the hours of daily seclusion thus piously pa.s.sed the Cardinal owed that character for sanct.i.ty which eminently distinguished him in the Church. A day never went over in which he did not devote at the least an hour to this sacred duty, and the air of absorption, as he repaired to the shrine, and the look of intense pre-occupation he brought away, vouched for the depth of his pious musings.

As Ma.s.soni arrived at the narrow causeway which led over to the island, he perceived that the veil of the Madonna was lowered. He knew, therefore, at once that the Cardinal was there, and he stopped to consider what course he should adopt, whether to loiter about the garden till his Eminence should appear, or repair to the palace and await him.

The Pere knew that the Cardinal was to leave Rome by midday, to reach Albano to dinner, and he mused over the shortness of the time their interview must last.

'This is no common emergency,' thought he at last; 'here is a case fraught with the most tremendous consequences. If this scheme be engaged in, the whole of Europe may soon be in arms--the greatest convulsion that ever shook the Continent may result; and out of the struggle who is to foresee what principles may be the victors!

'I will go to him at once,' said he resolutely. 'Events succeed each other too rapidly nowadays for more delay. The "Terror" in France has once more turned men's minds to the peaceful security of a monarchy. Let us profit by the moment'; and with this he traversed the narrow bridge and reached the island.

A thick copse of ornamental planting screened the front of the little shrine. Hastily pa.s.sing through this, he stood within a few yards of the building, when his steps were quickly arrested by the sound of a voice whose accents could not be mistaken for the Cardinal's. There was besides something distinctively foreign in the p.r.o.nunciation that marked the speaker for a stranger. Curious to ascertain who might be the intruder in a spot so sacred, Ma.s.soni stepped noiselessly through the brushwood, and gained a little loop-holed aperture beside the altar, from which the whole interior of the shrine could be seen. Seated on one of the marble steps below the altar was the Cardinal, a loose dressing-gown of rich fur wrapped round him, and a cap of the same material on his head. Directly in front of him, and also seated on the pedestal of a column, was a man in a Carthusian robe, patched and discoloured, and showing many signs of age and poverty. The wearer, however, was rubicund and jovial-looking, though the angles of the mouth were somewhat dragged, and the wrinkles at the eyes were deep-worn. The general expression, however, was that of one whose nature accepted the struggles of life manfully and cheerfully. It was not till after some minutes of close scrutiny that Ma.s.soni could recall the features, but at length he remembered that it was the well-known Carthusian friar, George Kelly, the former companion of Prince Charles Edward. If their positions in life were widely different, Kelly did not suffer the disparity to influence his manner, but talked with all the ease and familiarity of an equal.

Whatever interest the scene might have had for Ma.s.soni was speedily increased by the first words which met his ears. It was the Cardinal who said--

'I own to you, Kelly, until what you have told me I had put little faith in the whole story of this youth; and there is then really such?'

'There is, or at least there was, your Eminence. I remember as well as if it was yesterday the evening he came to the palace to see the Prince.

A poor countryman of my own, a Carthusian, brought him, and took him back again to the college. The boy was afterward sent to a villa somewhere near Orvieto.'

'Was the youth acknowledged by his Royal Highness as his son?' asked the Cardinal.

'The Prince never spoke of him to me till the day before his death. He then said, "Can you find out that Carthusian for me, Kelly?--I should like to speak with him." I told him that he had long since left Rome and even Italy. The last tidings of him came from Ireland, where he was living as a dependant on some reduced family.

'"There is no time to fetch him from Ireland," said his Highness; "and yet, Kelly, I 'd give a thousand pounds that he were here." He then asked me if I remembered a certain boy, dressed like a colleger of the Jesuits, who came one night long ago to the palace with this same Carthusian.

'I said, yes; that though his Royal Highness believed that I was away from Rome that night, I came back post-haste from Albano; and finding myself in one of the corridors, I waited till Fra Luke came out from his interview, with the boy beside him.

'"True, true, Kelly; I meant you to have known nothing of this visit. So then you saw the boy? What thought you of him?"

'"I saw and marked him well, for his fair hair and skin were so distinctively English, they made a deep impression upon me."

'"He had the mouth, too, Kelly--a little pouting and over full-lipped.

Did you mark that?"

'"No, sire; I did not observe him so closely."

'"How poor and ragged the child was! his very shoes were broken. Did you see his shoes?--and that frail bit of serge was all his covering against the keen blast. O George," cried he, as his lip shook with emotion, "what would you say if that poor boy, all wretched and wayworn as you saw him, were the true heir of a throne, and that the proudest in Europe? What a lesson for human greatness that! It was a scurvy trick you played me that night, sir," said he, quickly changing, for his moods were ever thus, and you never could guess how long any theme would engage him--"a scurvy trick, sir, to pry into what your master desired you should not know. I had my own good reasons for what I did, and it ill became you to contravene them; but it was like your cloth--ay, sirrah, it was the trick of all your kind."

'Out of this he fell a-weeping over the fallen fortunes of his house, asking again and again if history contained anything its equal; and saying that other dynasties had fallen through their crimes and cruelties, but that his house had been ruined by trustfulness and generosity; and so he forgot the boy and all about him.'

'And think you it was to this youth that his Royal Highness bequeathed the sum mentioned in his will, together with his George, the Grand Cross of Malta, and the St. John of Jerusalem, for so the Cardinal York tells me the bequest runs?'

'As to that I can say nothing,' Kelly replied.

'I have heard,' said the Cardinal again, 'that in a sealed letter to his brother York the Prince acknowledges this boy as his son, born in wedlock, his mother being of an ancient and n.o.ble house.' Then quickly changing his tone, he asked, 'How are we to find him, Kelly? Do you believe that he still lives?'

'I have no means of knowing; but if I wished to trace a man, not merely in Europe, but through the globe itself, I am aware of but one police to trust to.'

'And that?'

'The Jesuits: they are everywhere; and everywhere cautious, painstaking, and trustworthy; they are well skilled in pursuits like these; and even when they fail--and they seldom fail--they never compromise those who employ them.'

'Well,' said the Cardinal, 'they have failed here. They have been on the track of this young fellow for years back; and when I tell you that the craftiest of them all, Ma.s.soni, has not been able to find a clue to him, what will you say?'

'Why, that he must be dead and buried, your Eminence,' broke in Kelly.

'To that conclusion have I come myself, Fra Kelly. Had he been alive he had come long since to claim this costly inheritance. Seven hundred thousand Roman scudi, the Palazzo Albuquerque, at Albano, with all its splendid pictures and jewels, worth double the whole----'

'Egad, I had come out of my grave to a.s.sert my right to such a bequest,'

said Kelly, laughing. 'Has the Cardinal York made search for him, your Eminence?' said he, hastily correcting his levity.

'The Cardinal York is not likely to disturb himself with such cares; and as the legacy lapses, in default of claimant, to the convent of St.

Lazarus of Medina, he probably deems that it will be as well bestowed.'

'Lazarus will have fallen upon some savory crumbs this time,' muttered Kelly, whose disposition to jest seemed beyond all his self-control.

'It was this very day Ma.s.soni hoped to have brought me some tidings of the youth, said the Cardinal, rising, 'and he has not appeared. It must be as you have said, Kelly; the grave has closed over him. There is now, therefore, a great danger to guard against: subst.i.tution of some other for him--not by Ma.s.soni; he is a man of probity and honour; but he may be imposed on by others. It is a fraud which would well repay all its trouble.'

'There is but one could detect the trick--that Luke M'Ma.n.u.s, the Carthusian I have mentioned to your Eminence. He knew the boy well, and was intrusted by the Prince to take charge of him; but he is away in Ireland.'