My Novel Part 96

"Ah, dear father, that, then, was your thought? But what can be your reason? Do not turn away; you know how care fully I have obeyed your command and kept your secret. Ah, you will confide in me."

"I do, indeed," returned Riccabocca, with emotion. "I leave this place in the fear lest my enemies discover me. I shall say to others that you are of an age to require teachers not to be obtained here, but I should like none to know where we go."

The Italian said these last words through his teeth, and hanging his head. He said them in shame.

"My mother--[so Violante always called Jemima]--my mother--you have spoken to her?"

"Not yet. THERE is the difficulty."

"No difficulty, for she loves you so well," replied Violante, with soft reproach. "Ah, why not also confide in her? Who so true, so good?"

"Good--I grant it!" exclaimed Riccabocca. "What then? _'Da cattiva Donna guardati, ed alla buona non fidar niente.'_--[From the bad woman, guard thyself; to the good woman trust nothing.]--And if you must trust,"

added the abominable man, "trust her with anything but a secret!"

"Fie," said Violante, with arch reproach, for she knew her father's humours too well to interpret his horrible sentiments literally,--"fie on your consistency, Padre Carissimo. Do you not trust your secret to me?"

"You! A kitten is not a cat, and a girl is not a woman. Besides, the secret was already known to you, and I had no choice. Peace, Jemima will stay here for the present. See to what you wish to take with you; we shall leave to-night." Not waiting for an answer, Riccabocca hurried away, and with a firm step strode the terrace, and approached his wife.

"Anima mia," said the pupil of Machiavelli, disguising in the tenderest words the cruellest intentions,--for one of his most cherished Italian proverbs was to the effect that there is no getting on with a mule or a woman unless you coax them,--"Anima mia, soul of my being, you have already seen that Violante mopes herself to death here."

"She, poor child! Oh, no!"

"She does, core of my heart,--she does, and is as ignorant of music as I am of tent-st.i.tch."

"She sings beautifully."

"Just as birds do, against all the rules, and in defiance of gamut.

Therefore, to come to the point, O treasure of my soul! I am going to take her with me for a short time, perhaps to Cheltenham or Brighton. We shall see."

"All places with you are the same to me, Alphonso. When shall we go?"

"We shall go to-night; but terrible as it is to part from you,--you--"

"Ah!" interrupted the wife, and covered her face with her hands.

Riccabocca, the wiliest and most relentless of men in his maxims, melted into absolute uxorial imbecility at the sight of that mute distress. He put his arm round his wife's waist, with genuine affection, and without a single proverb at his heart. "Carissima, do not grieve so; we shall be back soon, and travelling is expensive; rolling stones gather no moss, and there is so much to see to at home."

Mrs. Riccabocca gently escaped from her husband's arm. She withdrew her hands from her face and brushed away the tears that stood in her eyes.

"Alphonso," she said touchingly, "hear me! What you think good, that shall ever be good to me. But do not think that I grieve solely because of our parting. No; I grieve to think that, despite all these years in which I have been the partner of your hearth, and slept on your breast,--all these years in which I have had no thought but, however humbly, to do my duty to you and yours, and could have wished that you had read my heart, and seen there but yourself and your child,--I grieve to think that you still deem me as unworthy your trust as when you stood by my side at the altar."

"Trust!" repeated Riccabocca, startled and conscience-stricken; "why do you say 'trust'? In what have I distrusted you? I am sure," he continued, with the artful volubility of guilt, "that I never doubted your fidelity, hook-nosed, long-visaged foreigner though I be; never pryed into your letters; never inquired into your solitary walks; never heeded your flirtations with that good-looking Parson Dale; never kept the money; and never looked into the account-books!" Mrs. Riccabocca refused even a smile of contempt at these revolting evasions; nay, she seemed scarcely to hear them.

"Can you think," she resumed, pressing her hand on her heart to still its struggles for relief in sobs,--"can you think that I could have watched and thought and taxed my poor mind so constantly, to conjecture what might best soothe or please you, and not seen, long since, that you have secrets known to your daughter, your servant, not to me? Fear not,--the secrets cannot be evil, or you would not tell them to your innocent child. Besides, do I not know your nature; and do I not love you because I know it?--it is for something connected with those secrets that you leave your home. You think that I should be incautious, imprudent. You will not take me with you. Be it so. I go to prepare for your departure. Forgive me if I have displeased you, husband." Mrs.

Riccabocca turned away; but a soft hand touched the Italian's arm. "O Father, can you resist this? Trust her! trust her!--I am a woman like her! I answer for her woman's faith. Be yourself,--ever n.o.bler than all others, my own father."

"Diavolo! Never one door shuts but another opens," groaned Riccabocca.

"Are you a fool, child? Don't you see that it was for your sake only I feared, and would be cautious?"

"For mine! Oh, then do not make me deem myself mean, and the cause of meanness. For mine! Am I not your daughter,--the descendant of men who never feared?" Violante looked sublime while she spoke; and as she ended she led her father gently on towards the door, which his wife had now gained.

"Jemima, wife mine! pardon, pardon," cried the Italian, whose heart had been yearning to repay such tenderness and devotion,--"come back to my breast--it has been long closed,--it shall be open to you now and forever."

In another moment the wife was in her right place,--on her husband's bosom; and Violante, beautiful peacemaker, stood smiling awhile at both, and then lifted her eyes gratefully to heaven and stole away.

CHAPTER XIII.

On Randal's return to town, he heard mixed and contradictory rumours in the streets, and at the clubs, of the probable downfall of the Government at the approaching session of parliament. These rumours had sprung up suddenly, as if in an hour. True that, for some time, the sagacious had shaken their heads and said, "Ministers could not last."

True, that certain changes in policy, a year or two before, had divided the party on which the Government depended, and strengthened that which opposed it. But still the more important members of that Government had been so long identified with official station, and there seemed so little power in the Opposition to form a Cabinet of names familiar to official ears, that the general public had antic.i.p.ated, at most, a few partial changes. Rumour now went far beyond this. Randal, whose whole prospects at present were but reflections from the greatness of his patron, was alarmed. He sought Egerton, but the minister was impenetrable, and seemed calm, confident, and imperturbed. Somewhat relieved, Randal then set himself to work to find a safe home for Riccabocca; for the greater need to succeed in obtaining fortune there, if he failed in getting it through Egerton. He found a quiet house, detached and secluded, in the neighbourhood of Norwood. No vicinity more secure from espionage and remark. He wrote to Riccabocca, and communicated the address, adding fresh a.s.surances of his own power to be of use. The next morning he was seated in his office, thinking very little of the details, that he mastered, however, with mechanical precision, when the minister who presided over that department of the public service sent for him into his private room, and begged him to take a letter to Egerton, with whom he wished to consult relative to a very important point to be decided in the Cabinet that day. "I want you to take it," said the minister, smiling (the minister was a frank homely man), "because you are in Mr. Egerton's confidence, and he may give you some verbal message besides a written reply. Egerton is often over cautious and brief in the litera scripta."

Randal went first to Egerton's neighbouring office--Egerton had not been there that day. He then took a cabriolet and drove to Grosvenor Square.

A quiet-looking chariot was at the door. Mr. Egerton was at home; but the servant said, "Dr. F----- is with him, sir; and perhaps he may not like to be disturbed."

"What! is your master ill?"

"Not that I know of, sir. He never says he is ill. But he has looked poorly the last day or two."

Randal hesitated a moment; but his commission might be important, and Egerton was a man who so held the maxim that health and all else must give way to business, that he resolved to enter; and, unannounced and unceremoniously, as was his wont, he opened the door of the library. He started as he did so. Audley Egerton was leaning back on the sofa, and the doctor, on his knees before him, was applying the stethoscope to his breast. Egerton's eyes were partially closed as the door opened. But at the noise he sprang up, nearly oversetting the doctor. "Who's that? How dare you?" he exclaimed, in a voice of great anger. Then recognizing Randal, he changed colour, bit his lip, and muttered dryly, "I beg pardon for my abruptness; what do you want, Mr. Leslie?"

"This letter from Lord--; I was told to deliver it immediately into your own hands. I beg pardon--"

"There is no cause," said Egerton, coldly. "I have had a slight attack of bronchitis; and as parliament meets so soon, I must take advice from my doctor, if I would be heard by the reporters. Lay the letter on the table, and be kind enough to wait for my reply."

Randal withdrew. He had never seen a physician in that house before, and it seemed surprising that Egerton should even take a medical opinion upon a slight attack. While waiting in the ante-room there was a knock at the street door, and presently a gentleman, exceedingly well dressed, was shown in, and honoured Randal with an easy and half-familiar bow.

Randal remembered to have met this personage at dinner, and at the house of a young n.o.bleman of high fashion, but had not been introduced to him, and did not even know him by name. The visitor was better informed.

"Our friend Egerton is busy, I hear, Mr. Leslie," said he, arranging the camellia in his b.u.t.ton-hole.

"Our friend Egerton!" It must be a very great man to say "Our friend Egerton."

"He will not be engaged long, I dare say," returned Randal, glancing his shrewd inquiring eye over the stranger's person.

"I trust not; my time is almost as precious as his own. I was not so fortunate as to be presented to you when we met at Lord Spendquick's.

Good fellow, Spendquick; and decidedly clever."

Lord Spendquick was usually esteemed a gentleman without three ideas.

Randal smiled.

In the mean while the visitor had taken out a card from an embossed morocco case, and now presented it to Randal, who read thereon, "Baron Levy, No.--, Bruton St."

The name was not unknown to Randal. It was a name too often on the lips of men of fashion not to have reached the ears of an habitue of good society.

Mr. Levy had been a solicitor by profession. He had of late years relinquished his ostensible calling: and not long since, in consequence of some services towards the negotiation of a loan, had been created a baron by one of the German kings. The wealth of Mr. Levy was said to be only equalled by his good-nature to all who were in want of a temporary loan, and with sound expectations of repaying it some day or other.

You seldom saw a finer-looking man than Baron Levy, about the same age as Egerton, but looking younger: so well preserved, such magnificent black whiskers, such superb teeth! Despite his name and his dark complexion, he did not, however, resemble a Jew,--at least externally; and, in fact, he was not a Jew on the father's side, but the natural son of a rich English grand seigneur, by a Hebrew lady of distinction--in the opera. After his birth, this lady had married a German trader of her own persuasion, and her husband had been prevailed upon, for the convenience of all parties, to adopt his wife's son, and accord to him his own Hebrew name. Mr. Levy, senior, was soon left a widower, and then the real father, though never actually owning the boy, had shown him great attention,--had him frequently at his house, initiated him betimes into his own high-born society, for which the boy showed great taste.

But when my Lord died, and left but a moderate legacy to the younger Levy, who was then about eighteen, that ambiguous person was articled to an attorney by his putative sire, who shortly afterwards returned to his native land, and was buried at Prague, where his tombstone may yet be seen. Young Levy, however, contrived to do very well without him. His real birth was generally known, and rather advantageous to him in a social point of view. His legacy enabled him to become a partner where he had been a clerk, and his practice became great amongst the fashionable cla.s.ses of society. Indeed he was so useful, so pleasant, so much a man of the world, that he grew intimate with his clients,--chiefly young men of rank; was on good terms with both Jew and Christian; and being neither one nor the other, resembled (to use Sheridan's incomparable simile) the blank page between the Old and the New Testament.