Sir Jasper Carew Part 37

The Count was seated on an easy-chair, still dressed in the pelisse he had worn on the journey, and with his travelling-cap in his hand. He struck me as a handsome and distinguished-looking man, 'but with a countenance that alike betrayed pa.s.sion and intemperance. The look he turned on me as I came forward was a.s.suredly not one of kindness or affection, nor did he extend his hand to me in sign of salutation.

"And this is Jasper!" repeated he slowly after my mother. "He is n't tall of his age, I think."

"We have always thought him so," said my mother, gently, "and a.s.suredly he is strong and well grown."

"The better able will he be to brave fatigue and hardship," said he, sternly. "Come forward, sir, and tell me something about yourself. What have they taught you at school?--has Raper made you a bookworm, dreamy and good-for-nothing as himself?"

"Would that he had made me resemble him in anything!" cried I, pa.s.sionately.

"It were a pity such a moderate ambition should go unrewarded," replied he, with a sneer. "But to the purpose: what do you know?"

"Little, sir; very little."

"And what can you do?"

"Even less."

"Hopeful, at all events," rejoined he, with a shrug of the shoulders.

"They haven't made you a scholar: they surely might have trained you to something."

My mother, who seemed to suffer most acutely during this short dialogue, here whispered something in his ear, to which he as hastily replied,--

"Not a bit of it. I know him better than that; better than you do.

Come, sir," added he, turning to me, "the Countess tells me that you are naturally sensitive, quick to feel censure, and p.r.o.ne to brood over it.

Is this the case?"

"I scarcely know if it be," said I. "I have but a slight experience of it."

"Ay, that's more like the truth," said he, gayly. "The language of blame is not familiar to him. So, then, from Raper you have learned little.

Now, what has the great financier and arch-swindler Law taught you?"

"Emile, Emile," broke in my mother, "this is not a way to speak to the boy, nor is it by such lessons he will be trained to grat.i.tude and affection."

"Even there, then, will my teaching serve him," said he, laughingly.

"From all that I have seen of life, these are but unprofitable emotions."

I did not venture to look at my mother; but I could hear how her breathing came fast and thick, and could mark the agitation she was under.

"Now, Jasper," said he, "sit down here beside me, and let us talk to each other in all confidence and sincerity. You know enough of your history to be aware that you are an orphan, that both your parents died leaving you penniless, and that to this lady, whom till now you have called your mother, you owe your home."

My heart was full to bursting, and I could only clasp my mother's hand and kiss it pa.s.sionately, without being able to utter a word.

"I neither wish to excite your feelings nor to weary you," said he, calmly; "but it is necessary that I should tell you we are not rich.

The fact, indeed, may have occurred to you already," said he, with a disdainful gesture of his hand, while his eye ranged over the poverty-stricken chamber where we sat. "Well," resumed he, "not being rich, but poor,--so poor that I have known what it is to feel hunger and thirst and cold, for actual want! Worse again," cried he, with a wild and savage energy, "have felt the indignity of being scoffed at for my poverty, and seen the liveried scullions of a great house make jests upon my threadbare coat and worn hat! It has been my own choosing, however, all of it!" and as he spoke, he arose, and paced the room with strides that made the frail chamber tremble beneath the tread.

"Dearest Emile," cried my mother, "let us have no more of this. Remember that it is so long since we met. Pray keep these sad reflections for another time, and let us enjoy the happiness of being once more together."

"I have no time for fooling, madame," said he, sternly. "I have come a long and weary journey about this boy. It is unlikely that I can afford to occupy myself with his affairs again. Let him have the benefit--if benefit there be--of my coming. I would relieve you of the burden of his support, and himself of the misery of dependence."

I started with surprise. It was the first time I had ever heard the word with reference to myself, and a sense of shame, almost to sickness, came over me as I stood there.

"Jasper is my child; he is all that a son could be to his mother," cried Polly, clasping me in her arms, and kissing my forehead; and I felt as if my very heart was bursting. "Between us there is no question of burden or independence."

"We live in an age of fine sentiments and harsh actions," said the Count. "I have seen M. de Robespierre shed tears over a dead canary, and I believe that he could control his feelings admirably on the Place de Greve. Jasper, I see that we must finish this conversation when we are alone together. And now to dinner."

He a.s.sumed a half air of gayety as he said this; but it was unavailing as a means of rallying my poor mother, whose tearful eyes and trembling lips told how sadly dispirited she felt at heart.

I had heard much from my mother about the charms of the Count's conversation, his brilliant tone, and his powers of fascination. It had been a favorite theme with her to dilate upon his wondrous agreeability, and the vast range of his acquaintance with popular events and topics.

She had always spoken of him, too, as one of buoyant spirits, and even boyish light-heartedness. She had even told me that he would be my companion, like one of my own age. With what disappointment, then, did I find him the very reverse of all this! All his views of life savored of bitterness and scorn; all his opinions were tinged with scepticism and distrust; he sneered at the great world and its vanities, but even these he seemed to hold in greater estimation than the humble tranquillity of our remote village. I have him before me this instant as he leaned out of the window and looked down the valley towards the Splugen Alps. The sun was setting, and only the tops of the very highest glaciers were now touched with its glory; their peaks shone like burnished gold in the sea of sky, azure and cloudless. The rest of the landscape was softened down into various degrees of shade, but all sufficiently distinct to display the wild and fanciful outlines of cliff and crag, and the zigzag course by which the young Rhine forced its pa.s.sage through the rocky gorge.

Never had the scene looked in greater beauty,--never had every effect of light and shadow been more happily distributed; and I watched him with eagerness as he gazed out upon a picture which nothing in all Europe can surpa.s.s. His countenance for a while remained calm, cold, and unmoved; but at last he broke silence and said:

"This it was, then, that gave that dark coloring to all your letters to me, Polly; and I half forgive you as I look at it. Gloom and barbarism were never more closely united."

"Oh, Emile, you surely see something else in this grand picture?" cried she, in a deprecating voice.

"Yes," said he, slowly, "I see poverty and misery; half-fed and half-clad shepherds; figures of bandit rugged-ness and savagery. I see these, and I feel that to live amongst them, even for a brief s.p.a.ce, would be to endure a horrid nightmare."

He moved away as he spoke, and sauntered slowly out of the room, down the stairs, and into the street.

"Follow him, Jasper," cried Polly, eagerly; "he is dispirited and depressed,--the journey has fatigued him, and he looks unwell. Go with him; but do not speak till he addresses you."

I did not much fancy the duty, but I obeyed without a word. He seemed to have quickened his pace as he descended; for when I reached the street, I could detect his figure at some distance off in the twilight. He walked rapidly on, and when he arrived at the bridge, he stopped, and, leaning against the bal.u.s.trade, looked up the valley.

"Are you weary of this, boy?" asked he, while he pointed up the glen.

I shook my head in dissent.

"Not tired of it," he exclaimed, "not heartsick of a life of dreary monotony, without ambition, without an object! When I was scarcely older than you I was a garde du corps; at eighteen I was in the household, and mixing in all the splendor and gayety of Paris; before I was twenty I fought the Duc de Valmy and wounded him. At the Longchamps of that same year I drove in the carriage with La Marquese de Rochvilliers; and all the world knows what success that was! Well, all these things have pa.s.sed away, and now we have a republic and the coa.r.s.e pleasures and coa.r.s.er tastes of the 'canaille.' Men like me are not the 'mode,' and I am too old to conform to the new school. But you are not so; you must leave this, boy,--you must enter the world, and at once, too. You shall come back with me to Paris."

"And leave my mother?"

"She is not your mother,--you have no claim on her as such; I am more your relative than she is, for your mother was my cousin. But we live in times when these ties are not binding. The guillotine loosens stronger bonds, and the whisper of the spy is more efficacious than the law of divorce. You must see the capital, and know what life really is. Here you will learn nothing but the antiquated prejudices of Raper, or the weak follies of--others."

He only spoke the last word after a pause of some seconds, and then moodily sank into silence.

I did not venture to utter a word, and waited patiently till he resumed, which he did by saying,--

"The Countess has told you nothing of your history,--nothing of your circ.u.mstances? Well, you shall hear all from me. Indeed, there are facts known to me with which she is unacquainted. For the present, Jasper, I will tell you frankly that the humble pittance on which she lives is insufficient for the additional cost of your support. I can contribute nothing; I can be but a burden myself. From herself you would never hear this; she would go on still, as she has done hitherto, struggling and pinching, battling with privations, and living that fevered life of combat that is worse than a thousand deaths. Raper, too, in his own fashion, would make sacrifices for you; but would you endure the thought of this? Does not the very notion revolt against all your feelings of honor and manly independence? Yes, boy, that honest grasp of the hand a.s.sures me that you think so! You must not, however, let it appear that I have confided this fact to you. It is a secret that she would never forgive my having divulged. The very discussion of it has cost us the widest estrangements we have ever suffered, and it would peril the continuance of our affection to speak of it."

"I will be secret," said I, firmly.

"Do so, boy; and remember that when I speak of your accompanying me to Paris, you express your wish to see the capital and its brilliant pleasures. Show, if not weary of this dreary existence here, that you at least are not dead to all higher and n.o.bler ambitions. Question me about the life of the great world, and in your words and questions exhibit the interest the theme suggests. I have my own plan for your advancement, of which you shall hear later."

He seemed to expect that I would show some curiosity regarding the future, but my thoughts were all too busy with the present. They were all turned to that home I was about to leave, to the fond mother I was to part from, to honest Joseph himself,--my guide, my friend, and my companion; and for what? An unknown sea, upon which I was to adventure without enterprise or enthusiasm.

The Count continued to talk of Paris and his various friends there, with whom he a.s.sured me I should be a favorite. He pictured the life of the great city in all its brightest colors. He mentioned the names of many who had entered it as unknown and friendless as myself, and yet, in a few years, had won their way up to high distinction. There was a vagueness in all this which did not satisfy me; but I was too deeply occupied with other thoughts to question or cavil at what he said.

When we went back to supper, Raper was there to pay his respects to the Count. De Gabriac received his respectful compliments coldly and haughtily; he even interrupted the little address poor Joseph had so carefully studied and committed to memory, by asking if he still continued to bewilder his faculties with Greek particles and obsolete dialects; and then, without waiting for his reply, he seated himself at the table, and arranged his napkin.