Gerald Fitzgerald: The Chevalier Part 7

asked the boy, with an accent of touching gentleness.

'That you do, child,' said he, laying his hand on the youth's shoulder, while he pa.s.sed the other across his eyes.

'I hope it was of none who ever gave you sorrow,' said the boy, who saw the quivering motion of the lip that indicates deep grief.

Charles Edward now removed his hand, and turned away his head for some seconds.

At last he arose suddenly from his chair, and with an effort that seemed to show he was struggling for the mastery over his own emotions, said, 'Is it your own choice to be a priest, Gerald?'

'No; far from it. I 'd rather be a herd on the Campagna! You surely know little of the life of the convent, Signor Conte, or you had not asked me that question.'

Far from taking offence at the boy's boldness, the Prince smiled good-naturedly at the energy of his reply.

'Is it the stillness, the seclusion that you dislike?' asked he, evidently wanting the youth to speak of himself and of his temperament.

'No, it is not that,' said Gerald thoughtfully. 'The quiet, peaceful hours, when we are left to what they call meditation, are the best of it. Then one is free to range where he will, in fancy. I 've had as many adventures, thus, as any fortune-seeker of the Arabian Nights. What lands have I not visited! what bold things have I not achieved! ay, and day after day, taken up the same dream where I had left it last, carrying on its fortunes, till the actual work of life seemed the illusion, and this, the dream-world, the true one.'

'So that, after all, this same existence has its pleasures, Gerald?'

'The pleasures are in forgetting it! ignoring that your whole life is a falsehood! They make me kneel at confession to tell my thoughts, while well I know that, for the least blamable of them, I shall be scourged.

They oblige me to say that I hate everything that gives a charm to life, and cherish as blessings all that can darken and sadden it. Well, I swear the lie, and they are satisfied! And why are they satisfied?--because out of this corrupt heart, debased by years of treachery and falsehood, they have created the being that they want to serve them.'

'What has led you to think thus hardly of the priesthood?'

'One of themselves, Signor Conte. He told me all that I have repeated to you now, and he counselled me, if I had a friend--one friend on earth--to beseech him to rescue me ere it was too late, ere I was like him.'

'And he--what became of him?'

'He died, as all die who offend the Order, of a wasting fever. His hair was white as snow, though he was under thirty, and his coffin was light as a child's. Look here, Signor Conte,' cried he, as a smile of half incredulity, half pity, curled the Prince's lip, 'look here. You are a great man and a rich: you never knew what it was in life to suffer any, the commonest of those privations poor men pa.s.s their days in----'

'Who can dare to say that of me?' cried Charles Edward pa.s.sionately.

'There's not a toil I have not tasted, there's not a peril I have not braved, there's not a sorrow nor a suffering that have not been my portion; ay, and, G.o.d wot, with heavier stake upon the board than ever man played for!'

'Forgive me, Signor Conte,' stammered out the boy, as his eyes filled up at the sight of the emotion he had caused, 'I knew not what I was saying.'

The Prince took little heed of the words, for his aroused thoughts bore him sadly to the mist-clad mountain and the heathery gorges far away; and he strode the room in deep emotion. At last his glance fell upon the youth as, pale and terror-stricken, he stood watching him, and he quickly said: 'I'm not angry with you, Gerald; do not grieve, my poor boy. You will learn, one of these days, that sorrow has its place at fine tables, just as at humbler boards. It helps the rich man to don his robe of purple, just as it aids the beggar to put on his rags. It's a stern conscription that calls on all to serve. But to yourself: you will not be a priest, you say? What, then, would you like--what say you to the life of a soldier?'

'But in what service, Signor Conte?'

'That of your own country, I suppose.'

'They tell me that the king is a usurper, who has no right to be king; and shall I swear faith and loyalty to him?'

'Others have done so, and are doing it every day, boy. It was but yesterday, Lord Blantyre made what they call his submission; and he was the bosom friend of--the Pretender'; and the last words were uttered in a half-scornful laugh.

'I will not hear him called by that name, Signor Conte. So long as I remember anything, I was taught not to endure it.'

'Was that your mother's teaching, Gerald?' said the Prince tenderly.

'It was, sir. I was a very little child; but I can never forget the last prayer I made each night before bed: it was for G.o.d's protection to the true Prince; and when I arose I was to say, "Confusion to all who call him the Pretender!"'

'He is not even _that_ now,' muttered Charles Edward, as he leaned his head on the mantelpiece.

'I hope, Signor Conte,' said the boy timidly, 'that you never were for the Elector.'

'I have done little for the cause of the Stuarts,' said Charles, with a deep sigh.

'I wish I may live to serve them,' cried the youth, with energy.

The Prince looked long and steadfastly at the boy, and, in a tone that bespoke deep thought, said:

'I want to befriend you, Gerald, if I but knew how. It is clear you have no vocation for the church, and we are here in a land where there is little other career. Were we in France something might be done. I have some friends, however, in that country, and I will see about communicating with them. Send the Frate hither.'

The boy left the room, and speedily returned with Fra Luke, whose anxious glances were turned from the Prince to the youth, in eager curiosity to learn how their interview had gone off.

'Gerald has no ambition to be a monsignore, Frate,' said the Prince laughingly, 'and we mustn't constrain him. They who serve the church should have their hearts in the calling. Do you know of any honest family with whom he might be domesticated for a short time--not in Rome, of course, but in the country; it will only be for a month or two at farthest?'

'There is a worthy family at Orvieto, if it were not too far----'

'Nothing of the kind; Orvieto will suit admirably. Who are these people?'

'The father is the steward of Cardinal Caraffa; but it is a villa that his eminence never visits, and so they live there as in their own palace; and the mountain air is so wholesome there, sick people used to seek the place; and so Tonino, as they call him, takes a boarder, or even two----'

'That is everything we want,' said the Prince, cutting short what he feared might be a long history. 'Let the boy go back now to the college, and do you yourself come here on Sat.u.r.day morning, and Kelly will arrange all with you.'

'I wish I knew why you are so good to me, Signor Conte,' said the boy, as his eyes filled up with tears.

'I was a friend of your family, Gerald,' said Charles, as he fixed his eyes on the friar, to enforce his former caution.

'And am I never to see you again, signor,' cried he eagerly.

'Yes, to be sure, you shall come here; but I will settle all that another time--on Sat.u.r.day, Fra; and now, good-bye.

The boy grasped the hand with which the Prince waved his farewell, and kissed it rapturously; and Charles, overcome at length by feelings he had repressed till then, threw his arms around the boy's neck, and pressed him to his bosom.

Fra Luke, terrified how such a moment might end, hurried the youth from the room, and retired.

CHAPTER VII. THE VILLA AT ORVIETO

If the villa life of Italy might prove a severe trial of temper and spirits to most persons, to young Gerald, trained in all the asceticism of a convent, it was a perfect paradise. The wild and far-spreading landscape imparted a glorious sense of liberty, which grew with each day's enjoyment of it. It was a land of mountain and forest--those deep, dark woods of chestnut-trees traversed with the clear and rapid rivulets so common in the Roman States, with here and there, at rare intervals, the solitary hut of a charcoal-burner. In these vast solitudes, silent as the great savannahs of the South, he pa.s.sed his days--now roaming in search of game, now dreamily lying, book in hand, beside a river's bank, or strolling listlessly along, tasting, in the very waywardness of an untrammelled will, an ecstasy only known to those who have felt captivity.

Though there were several young people in the family of the Intendente, Gerald had no companionship with any of them: the boys were boorish, uneducated, and coa.r.s.e-minded, and the girls, with one exception, were little better. Ninetta, it is true, was gentler; her voice was soft, and her silky hair and soft, dark eyes had a strange, subduing influence about them; but even she was far from that ideal his imagination had pictured, nor could he, by all his persuasions, induce her to share his raptures for Ariosto, or the still more pa.s.sionate delight that Petrarch gave him. He was just opening that period of youth when the heart yearns for some object of affection--some centre around which its own hopes and fears, its wishes and aspirations, may revolve. It is wonderful how much imagination contributes in such cases, supplying graces and attractions where nature has been a n.i.g.g.ard, and giving to the veriest commonplace character traits of distinctive charm.

Ninetta was quite pretty enough for all this, but she was no more.

Without a particle of education, she had never raised her mind beyond the commonest daily cares; and what with the vines, the olives, the chestnuts, the festivals of the church, and little family gatherings, her life had its sphere of duties so full as to leave no time for the love-sick wanderings of an idle boy.