Lord Montagu's Page Part 29

The expression of Lord Montagu's face when he at length rejoined his page at Aix was calm and well satisfied, cheerful, but not particularly gay. Yet Edward, who had enjoyed many opportunities of witnessing the effect of various emotions upon him, clearly perceived that he returned with full success. Had his mood been merrier, the page might have doubted; had he been full of the playful wit or the light jest which distinguished the cavaliers of those days, the youth might have supposed there was disappointment under the levity; but that quiet and composed demeanor he knew meant success. Their first meeting was at the inn where Montagu had lodged while previously at Aix; for the youth had gone down each evening for the last two or three days to watch for his arrival: but on the night in question his lord had ridden into the town some half-hour before the time he was expected; and when Edward entered his chamber he was sitting with a book in one hand and a spoon in the other, lightly running over the pages, and from time to time taking a spoonful of soup flavored with those delicious truffles of Savoy which have often kept kingly couriers running between Paris and Turin.

"Ah, Ned!" he exclaimed, as soon as he saw the lad. "You have recovered wonderfully soon: a little pale still; but that is natural. How say you?

can you ride forward three days hence?"

"Whenever your lordship pleases," answered Edward. "I am only eager to get on; and this inactivity does me more harm than all the exercise in the world. I am quite well, my lord, and only a little weak."

"Do not be impatient," answered Montagu, with a smile. "We cannot go on just yet. Oakingham is ill now, poor fellow! I have ridden too fast for him; and he broke down during the last stage, and has gone to bed. So I am without any one to write my letters for me to-night."

"Can your lordship trust the task to me?" asked the young man.

"Oh, trust you? Certainly, Ned," replied the other. "But will it not hurt you?"

Edward expressed his readiness; and the letters were written, full of that well-satisfied confidence which in this world is so often destined to disappointment. Fate is no better than a fine silk stocking, in which one st.i.tch or another is sure to run down ere we have taken a dozen steps in the ball-room of the world: well if it be not rent from top to toe! There are no key-stones in the architecture of our designs; and, if a pebble slips, woe be to the whole edifice!

But we are getting a little ahead of the story, or, at least, foreshadowing conclusions which should be reserved in solemn secrecy for the moment of their occurrence.

The letters being written, one of the n.o.ble lord's grooms was called up, furnished with money and directions, and departed to bear the missives to their several destinations as rapidly and as carefully as he could.

"There goes another," said Montagu. "That is the fifth courier I have sent off this week. Upon my word, Ned, if it had not been for your coming with two lackeys and two blacksmiths I should soon have been without any train at all. But you seem not to love your two blacksmiths, my boy. What has set your face against them? Have they lamed your horse, or found you out in a love-affair with the landlord's daughter, cheated you of two _livres Tournois_, or eaten the only fish upon a _jour maigre_?"

"None of all those great offences, my lord," replied Edward. "They are good smiths; I have not been fortunate with mine host's daughters; their charges are compa.s.sionate to youths without experience; and no trout that I know of has slipped off my own hook. But one of them I am certain I saw in the court of the chateau at Nantes; and I like not the countenance of either."

"Pshaw!" said Lord Montagu. "Do you give way to the superst.i.tion of physiognomy? Why, cut me across the nose with the back-handed blow of a spadroon, and you make a marvellous ill-favored fellow out of a gay gentleman who has not been thought unpersonable. Nonsense, nonsense, Edward! The best nuts have the roughest sh.e.l.ls. The diamond itself is but like a pebble-stone till it is cut and polished. And where in the fiend's name should either of these two poor devils get ground down or burnished?"

"Well, my lord, I say not a word against them," answered Edward. "They told a true tale, it seems, as to their journey. To me they were wonderfully kind when I was hurt. Neither do I mind mere ugliness: that is G.o.d's doing; and it may be as a warning to others, or it may not: I cannot tell. But there is a sort of look--an expression--which men beget in themselves by their habitual acts or thoughts, which is a great truth-teller, I think. Now, these men look cunning. Each of them squints, too, more or less. One cannot see whom or what they are looking at."

Lord Montagu broke into a gay laugh. "As if every man," he said, "should be condemned who does not square his gaze by line and rule. Out upon it, Ned! If ever you fall in love, you will need an astrolabe to measure the exact angles of your beauty's l.u.s.trous...o...b... Why, some of the best men in England squint like a green parrot. More lucky they, if they can see both sides of every thing at once. But I will show you a man to-night who shall come up to even your ideas of perfection. He ought to be here about this hour. Oh, he is a marvel of beauty and grace!"

Thus saying, he knocked hard with the hilt of his dagger upon the table, and one of the servants of the inn appeared. "Show in the ill.u.s.trious Signor Morini whenever he comes," said Lord Montagu: "we must not keep so great and amiable a personage waiting."

"He is here now, monseigneur," answered the servant.

"Well, conduct him hither," answered the English gentleman, "and tell my servant to give you a bottle of that delicious Italian wine which I sent on from Turin. Three Venice gla.s.ses, too, must be brought, and a small plate of sugared peaches."

The waiter retired, and, a moment or two after, one of the most singular figures entered the room that Edward had ever seen. It was that of a man, not old, but past the middle age, dressed in the height of the fashion, beribboned and belaced, with a long rapier by his side, which would have touched the ground had it even been borne upon the thigh of a tall man. But Signor Morini was not a tall man: on the contrary, he was certainly not more than four feet two or three inches in height, with a back bent into the shape of the bow of a double-ba.s.s. He was thin, too, and his face--with the exception of the eyes, which were large and l.u.s.trous--was of that peculiar ugliness which is frequently seen in the deformed, the features all packed together and looking as if they had been pinched to get them into a smaller s.p.a.ce.

No consciousness of ugliness appeared in his demeanor, however,--no timidity, no shyness. He entered with the strut of a bantam-c.o.c.k, while his rich but short cloak, borne out by the round of his back so as to hang far off from his person, afforded no bad image of the tail of the bird. He saluted Lord Montagu with ceremonious respect, and stared at Edward Langdale with an unwinking gaze which was almost insolent, smoothing down the little sharp tuft of sandy-colored hair which adorned his chin in the form of what was then called a royal, with an air of ineffable puppyism.

"Ah, my lord," he said, in French, "you see I kept my word and was at Aix two days before you. But who is this young gentleman? I do not know him. He was not in your suite at Turin, I believe."

"This is my young friend and gentleman, Monsieur de Langdale," answered Lord Montagu, with much a.s.sumed politeness. "Let me present him to you, Signor Morini. He is a philosopher like yourself, and deals, as you do, in the great science of physiognomy, though of course his youth places him far behind you in knowledge."

Edward and Morini exchanged bows and salutations, the latter either not at all perceiving, or not appearing to perceive, that there was a vein of jest running through Lord Montagu's politeness which might not have been very flattering to his vanity. "Ha! a philosopher!" he exclaimed.

"I am right glad to see any one who, in these degenerate times, devotes himself to the only great, pure, and n.o.ble pursuits on which the mind of a man can expatiate. What is the particular science to which you have most addicted yourself, young gentleman? What have you lately been studying?"

"Nothing," replied Edward, almost inclined to be rude. "My lord does me too much honor in calling me a philosopher."

"Nay, nay," said Montagu, laughing: "if I may judge from letters I have received, and from what you yourself have told me, you have been lately studying much,--fair ladies' hearts and prime ministers' heads,--Ned. He has quite captivated a d.u.c.h.ess and smoothed down a cardinal. But what he means, learned signor, is, that, having been badly wounded by a sword which let rather too much daylight into the dark chamber of his chest, his only study was to get well again."

"Did you anoint the blade?" asked Morini: "the blade should always be anointed at the proper hour of the moon. Had I been here he would have been well in a few days."

"Probably," said Montagu, gravely; "but we had no one but poor, ignorant surgeons, who forgot the precaution you mention."

"Ah, they are stupid and hard-headed creatures," replied the other: "they never consider that man is composed of an animal and an ethereal part indissolubly linked together, each depending upon the other, and both affected by higher influences. The sympathies which exist between all created things they take into no account. The compelling powers of the whole heavenly host upon the human frame, upon every part thereof,--upon man as an animal, upon man as an angel, upon man's whole fate and destiny, upon his mixed and separate natures,--are mere visions to them; and the time will come, my lord, when this mere material view will prevail over all the earth: intelligence--spirit--will be superseded, and engines will be invented to do the work of mind as well as matter. Where was your wound, young gentleman?"

"Here on the right breast the sword entered," answered Edward; "and it went out here, just under the shoulder."

"A dangerous wound!" replied the little man, gravely. "None but a brother's hand could have inflicted that wound and the sufferer survive."

Lord Montagu and Edward both started; but Morini went on, without seeming to perceive their surprise. "Nature abhors," he said, "such acts, and often frustrates them. The crime of Cain--the first and most terrible the world ever saw, the origin of death, the eldest-born of evil--is repugnant to every thing animate and inanimate. Fibres and tissues join which seem rent apart forever, and humours flow of themselves, nerves act without cause, all to repair the consequences of the terrible act, while thunders fall to prevent it and rocks to hide it. But what is written up there must be,--shall be; and it is possible this very wound, given by a brother's hand, may work great changes in your life."

"I trust it will," said Edward.

"But how did you know it was so given?" asked Lord Montagu.

"By the simplest of all means," replied Morini: "from knowing it could be given in no other way."

As he spoke, he turned round sharply, for the door behind him opened suddenly. It was but two of the servants of the inn, bringing in the wine and the Venice gla.s.ses; and their coming so laden was certainly not at all unpleasant to the learned signor, who did full justice not only to the wine but to the confections also. While the party regaled themselves, the conversation wandered to many topics,--some of little, some of much, interest, with variety always agreeable. Indeed, Morini, who undoubtedly led, did not suffer it to rest long upon any subject. He spoke of several of the most celebrated people of Europe, of that and of the preceding age. He had seen King James, he said, shaking his head. "I did think," he said, "that homely sovereign would never have died a natural death, for he certainly brought a dark and b.l.o.o.d.y cloud over the royal house of England. But you will remark, my lord, I could never obtain clearly the particulars of his nativity; otherwise I could not have been mistaken. However, the aspects in the horoscope of his successor are more unfavorable still, I hear."

"Now, Heaven forefend!" said Lord Montagu, warmly: "he is a right n.o.ble monarch, and, though the commonalty do fret and storm, he is too strong and firm for them to shake him. But what say you of the great and gallant Duke of Buckingham, signor? There is a man born to success and honor."

"His star has pa.s.sed its culminating-point," said Morini: "there is something dark and sad behind. His life cannot be long. Perhaps he may die upon the battle-field in this new war; but I think it more likely he will receive his death in a private encounter. He is hot and fiery, they say. Such a thing is probable."

Montagu shook his head. "Few things less probable," he said: "there are not many men in England who would venture to call Buckingham to the field; and, though his is so free and n.o.ble a spirit that he would very likely consent to meet any one of gentle blood, yet he would not willingly offend the king by such rashness."

"Well, 'tis a foolish practice," said Morini, changing the subject,--"ay, and a barbarous one too, my lord. We derive it from the worst and rudest times of history. Who ever heard of a Roman or a Greek fighting a duel? Yet they were brave men, those ancients."

"Yet you go well armed, signor," said Lord Montagu, pointing to his long rapier, with a smile.

"It is good always to be prepared," answered the other. "Besides, this rapier has many qualities and perfections, for which I value it. The blade is true Toledo, the sheath wrought by Jean of Cordova. Then the hilt, you see, is of silver, exquisitely cast by Cellini's own hand. Did you ever see a more graceful group than the two figures which compose it?--a warrior putting his hand to his sword, and a young girl with her arm round his neck pressing the weapon back into the sheath,--types of courage and moderation. The dagger is a curious relic of the feudal times,--a kill-villain, as the young Genoese n.o.bles used to call it. We have no such handiwork as that now, my lord," he continued, as Montagu examined the weapon. "'Tis curious how arts and sciences are lost, and how, whilst mankind deem they are making great progress, they are falling back in one path as much as they are advancing in another."

Edward Langdale went round to Lord Montagu's side and gazed at the workmanship of the sword and dagger over his shoulder, murmuring, as he did so, "Beautiful, indeed!"--much to Morini's satisfaction.

"You seem to be a judge of such things, young gentleman," said the Italian.

"But little," said Edward: "my father, indeed, had some fine specimens of art which he had brought over to England from this country; but any one who sees a beautiful and graceful figure, well executed, must know and admire it."

"Your pardon! your pardon!" cried Morini. "The eye and the taste both want educating. Had you not seen and admired those objects of your father's, you would probably not have discovered the beauty of this. If you stay long in Aix, I can show you some other things well worth your observation."

"My stay depends entirely upon my lord," replied Edward; "but I think if he have no further commands I must retire to the abbey, for it is late."

"I will accompany you part of the way," said Morini, rising.

"Nay," said Lord Montagu, "you forget you came here for a special purpose, my good signor. Edward can go; for, though he has faith in physiognomy, he has none in astrology, I believe; but you must stay with me a little longer. Come early to-morrow, Ned, and bring your two men with you."

"It is wrong, my lord," said the Italian, "very wrong, to put full faith in an uncertain science and refuse it to a certain one. But I will convince him in a moment before he goes home. Come hither, young gentleman, and let me speak a word in your ear."