In Direst Peril Part 15

"Thank you, sir," she answered. "I do not spy upon the people to whom I profess to give my friendship."

That was perhaps as heroic a lie as even a lady of the baroness's profession ever uttered; but at that time I was not master of the facts of the case, and the little woman spoke with so much dignity and nature that she imposed upon me. I was really half ashamed of having suggested to her a course which only a minute before seemed quite natural.

"Madame," I said, "the position is a peculiar one, and it cannot be encountered by ordinary means. I accept without reserve the declaration you offer of your belief in Miss Pleyel's innocence. But then, you see, unhappily, I know the whole story, and I am forced, however unwillingly, to offer you an ultimatum."

"Pray let me hear it," she answered, in a tone of sarcasm.

"It is briefly this," I said. "It is impossible that the Baroness Bonnar should retain her a.s.sociation with Miss Pleyel and with Lady Rollinson at the same time."

"You guarantee that?" asked the baroness. "May I ask what means you propose to adopt?"

"If I am compelled," I answered, "but only in case I am compelled, I shall take the one possible, straightforward course, and shall tell to Lady Rollinson the story I have told to you."

The baroness tried another tack.

"I have often heard it said," she began, bitterly, "that it is only women who have no mercy upon women. Do you tell me, Captain Fyffe, that you can have the heart to hound this poor creature down, even if all you charge against her were true, if all her life until now had been one huge mistake? Is she to have no chance of amendment? Do not suppose,"

she cried, "that your story convinces me for a moment! I am looking at your side alone, that is all."

"Pardon me," I felt constrained to answer, "I see no sign of any wish for amendment. The only defence yet offered lies in a gross and groundless accusation against myself. When I came here I had no idea that Miss Pleyel meant to be dangerous to me. I learn from you the course on which she has decided."

"She!" cried the baroness. "She has decided upon nothing. Perhaps I have been led too readily to leap at a conclusion. She has made no accusation against you, poor thing; but I confess that I thought she was striving to defend you. She was terribly agitated by the chance sight she caught of you in the street last night. She has been weeping ever since. She gave me your letters with some broken words, which perhaps I may have misconstrued. If I have done you wrong, I beg your pardon. If I have done you wrong, I beg your forgiveness with all my heart. But surely, Captain Fyffe, you do not in cold blood propose to one woman that she shall throw another on the world, that she should cast her, however frail she may have been, into new temptations. You must let me tell you," she hurried on, raising her hand against me to arrest any interruption I might have been disposed to make--"you must let me tell you that I exercise some little forbearance in taking this tone at all.

No slander has ever touched my reputation, and I do not intend that it shall smirch it now. I have but to say I have been deceived to establish myself in the sight of all who know me. Tell me, sir, if you have ever heard a whisper against my honor. Did ever man or woman breathe a word in your hearing with respect to me which might not have been spoken of a sister of your own?"

The plain truth was that I knew n.o.body but Bru-now who had any acquaintance with the little lady's antecedents. He had certainly spoken of her often in terms which I should have been very sorry to have heard applied to a sister of mine if I had been so fortunate as to own one.

But, then, Brunow was a man about town, and a braggart at the same time, and I had attached no more importance to his talk than to the irresponsible babble of a baby. It was not my business to repeat Brunow's stupid follies, and I kept silent. She, however, was not disposed to let me off that way, but pressed me for an answer.

"Madame," I was forced to say, "I am not so impertinent as to call your reputation into question for an instant. I will not be so insolent as to sit in judgment upon so delicate a question for a moment. I have said all I had to say, and can see no reason for recalling any part of it." I bowed, and made a movement to retire, but she flashed between me and the door, and faced me with supplicating hands.

"Think again, Captain Fyffe," she besought me; "think again. Poor Constance is not the heartless wretch you fancy her. She is alone in the world; she is friendless, penniless. There is n.o.body to lend her a helping hand, n.o.body to believe in her wish to lead a better life but only poor little me. And of what avail is my belief in her, of what avail is my wish to lift her from the mire if you should go from me and trumpet her past abroad. I knew her, Captain Fyffe, when she was richer and happier than she is now, when she was received by society in St.

Petersburg, when she was courted, admired, adored. I am sorry for her in my soul. It would wring my heart to let her go. And notice, Captain Fyffe, I am not trying to thrust her on the world, I am not trying to introduce her to any friend of mine. When you saw us in the street yesterday she drove out for the first time in my company in London. Ah, Captain Fyffe, we cannot do much good in this miserable world if we try ever so hard. I have never tried very hard. I have been a frivolous, b.u.t.terfly, useless creature; but at my time of life, you see, one begins to have serious fancies. And it was mine to find this poor creature an asylum, where she might hide her head from shame, and be free of all temptation. You are a stern man, Captain Fyffe, you have shown me that, but do not be all justice and no mercy." She actually cried and clung to me as she spoke, and even now it seems difficult to believe that there was no genuine feeling at the bottom of it all, though I know perfectly well that there was no ground for the merest sc.r.a.p of it.

The situation was horribly embarra.s.sing, and yet if I had been the most yielding fool alive there was no escape. It was simply impossible that I, with my eyes open, should permit any woman who openly a.s.sociated with Constance Pleyel to a.s.sociate with Violet.

"I have no wish," I answered, "to speak one word to Miss Pleyel's disadvantage, and I have no right, to dictate terms to you; but if you should insist on continuing your acquaintance with Miss Pleyel and with Lady Rollinson, it will be my bounden duty to tell her ladyship what I know, and leave her to act for herself."

"Ah, well," she cried, in a voice of despair, "I do not even know that I can blame you; but am I to be sure that I can buy your silence?"

"That you can buy my silence?" I repeated.

"Yes," she answered, despondently, looking up at me with tear-stained eyes. "I mean--will you say nothing if I promise to visit Lady Rollinson no more and to meet Miss Rossano no more? I am asking nothing for myself, Captain Fyffe, remember, and I would not stoop to make terms at all if it were not for this unhappy woman's sake. Will you promise me this?"

I thought the matter over for a minute, and I promised. As it turned out, I never did an unwiser thing; but I had no means of knowing how unwise it was, and I was affected by her tears and protestations. If Baroness Bonnar had not had the skill to bedevil cleverer men than myself, and men twenty times as experienced, she would never have risen to the position of eminence she occupied.

We parted on the understanding that she was to pay no more visits to Lady Rollinson's house, but was to do her loyal best to avoid Violet and her chaperon. I went away half inclined to think myself a brute for having exacted that undertaking from her. Of course, if I had been the man of the world I thought myself, I should never have gone to see her, never have shown my hand, but should have awaited the development of events after having told Lady Rollinson what I knew, and having left her to safeguard her own interests and mine.

The whole business had been cruelly unpleasant, and I left the baroness's house thinking that on the whole I was very well out of it. I was sorry for the little lady herself, and did really and seriously give her credit for good intentions, which proves either that she was an exceptionally fine actress, or that I was an exceptional greenhorn.

I had scarcely left the house when I heard my name called in a loud whisper, and, turning, saw the gaunt figure of Ruffiano within half a dozen yards of me. He was astonishingly shabby still, but he rejoiced in clean linen, and had been recently shaven, so that he looked far more presentable than usual.

His eyes were blazing, and the whole of his long bony frame was. .h.i.tching and jolting with suppressed excitement.

"I have news!" he said; "such news! Which way go you? The man is here."

I turned in the direction indicated, and saw a foreign-looking fellow in a huge beard, a slouched hat, and a melodramatic cloak, looking for all the world like a conspirator in an Adelphi or Olympic drama at that date. It was raining slightly, but the man stood with folded arms in the middle of the pavement at the street corner, like a statue of patience, with the keen February wind buffeting his long cloak picturesquely about him, and blowing his wild hair and beard in all directions. At a signal from Ruffiano he crossed over to us, and the droll old Quixote, with superabundant gesture, began to question him in Italian, the man answering, of course, in the same tongue. When they had talked together for four or five minutes Ruffiano turned upon me with his hands spread wide, and his face beaming with triumph.

"You see," he said.

"You forget, my dear count," I told him, "that I don't understand a word of what you have been saying."

The count reviled himself, and plunged into apologies so fluent as to be only half intelligible.

"This gentleman," he said, indicating the s.h.a.ggy melodramatist, "has but now arrived by the morning train from Paris. The hour is here at last.

Louis Philippe has run away, and by this hour we suspect he is in England. You know what that means for us?"

I knew what it meant very well, but I was not disposed to believe the story without examination. I found that the messenger spoke no word of any language but his own, and resolved on carrying him at once to Count Rossano. To that end I called a hackney-coach, not greatly caring, I confess it, to be seen in broad daylight in London streets with such an astonishing pair of guys as poor old Ruffiano and his friend.

The count was at home, and, receiving us at once, heard the story with an excitement equal to that of the narrator. When it was ended he turned on me with the very phrase Ruffiano had used: "The hour is here!"

"You can trust this man?" I asked.

"Absolutely," he responded.

I confessed that I should prefer to await a confirmation of his story by the newspapers, but the count interrupted me with a wave of the hand.

"You will see," he said, "that the newspapers will confirm the story to-morrow, and in the meantime we shall have saved a day. France is awake, and the awaking of France is the dawn of liberty for Italy. We must hold a meeting to-night. You will wait?" he asked me. "I have a hundred things to talk of, but I must first despatch Count Ruffiano to our friends."

"Yes," cried Ruffiano, with a more than common emphasis on the superfluous vowels he used, "we must meet to-night. The hour is here. In a week from now we shall have the usurper by the throat. Wait but a day, and you shall hear such news from Milano! They are ready there, and there will be no holding them back this time."

The count silenced him, and gave him rapid instructions in Italian. I could follow most of what he said in this case, for I was familiar with every name he mentioned. He was calling out the astutest and most influential of the Italian refugees then in London. The revolutionary Italian party, like all the revolutionary parties known to history, was split up into sections. There were moderates and immoderates among them, men to whom the name of Carlo Alberto was an oriflamme, and others to whom it was the very signal of scorn and loathing. The count was calling the extremists of both schools together, and Ruffiano expostulated.

"This is a time," said the count, addressing me, "at which we must sink all divisions. We shall find ample time to quarrel when the work is done. In the meantime the work lies before us, and no good Italian can hang back from it."

"We shall do nothing but quarrel," Ruffiano protested. "We shall be at daggers drawn among ourselves."

"Leave that to me," said the count, "and do you do my bidding."

After this there was no more question, and Quixote set off, taking his brigand of a companion with him. The count paced the room in a sort of silent fury for a while, but he was easily tired, and after two or three minutes of this violent exercise he dropped, pale and panting, into an arm-chair, and wiped the thick beads of perspiration from his forehead.

"There is no doubt about the news," he said then; "and even if it were not true to-day, it would be true to-morrow or the day after."

I pointed out to him that its very likelihood should make us resolve that our evidence was perfect before we acted on it.

"Yes, yes," he cried, with an angry impatience; "but we must be ready for action, and I propose no more. There is just one thing in respect to which I have not yet taken you into confidence. I have had an opportunity offered me of the purchase of a stock of arms. They were made in Birmingham, at the order of one of the South American republics which fell into bankruptcy just as the order was fulfilled. They are to be had at a very low price, and I am inclined to buy them. I ask your judgment on this matter on two grounds, Captain Fyffe. To begin with, it is twenty years since I knew the world, and the fashion of arms has so changed during that time that I am a judge no longer. I shall want you to decide on the quality of the weapons." I nodded a.s.sent to this, and he went on. "The second reason is much more personal to yourself. The cause is poor, but my daughter, in the course of a few days, will have in her own hands a large sum of money inherited from her mother, and increased by interest through her long minority. In round figures she will receive something like forty thousand pounds. She proposes to offer that sum to her father's country. You ought to know of that."

I did not see what concern this was of mine, and I said so. Violet's fortune, so far as I was concerned, was entirely at her own disposal.

I felt this so strongly that I did not dare to express myself quite unreservedly, lest I might seem guilty of a pretence of too great disinterestedness. But I added that if the money were my own, I could think of no better way of spending it, and the count was satisfied.

He was in the very act of describing to me the weapons he proposed to buy when a servant entered with a card.