Part 100 (1/2)
”Ah, that would indeed be, next to my own marriage with her, the most fortunate thing that could happen to myself.”
”How? I don't understand!”
”Why, if my cousin has so abjured his birthright, and forsworn his rank; if this heritage, which is so dangerous from its grandeur, pa.s.s, in case of his pardon, to some obscure Englishman,--a foreigner, a native of a country that has no ties with ours, a country that is the very refuge of levellers and Carbonari--mort de ma vie! do you think that such would not annihilate all chance of my cousin's restoration, and be an excuse even in the eyes of Italy for formally conferring the sequestrated estates on an Italian? No; unless, indeed, the girl were to marry an Englishman of such name and birth and connection as would in themselves be a guarantee (and how in poverty is this likely?) I should go back to Vienna with a light heart, if I could say, 'My kinswoman is an Englishman's wife; shall her children be the heirs to a house so renowned for its lineage, and so formidable for its wealth?' Parbleu!
if my cousin were but an adventurer, or merely a professor, he had been pardoned long ago. The great enjoy the honour not to be pardoned easily.”
Randal fell into deep but brief thought. The count observed him, not face to face, but by the reflection of an opposite mirror. ”This man knows something; this man is deliberating; this man can help me,”
thought the count.
But Randal said nothing to confirm these hypotheses. Recovering from his abstraction, he expressed courteously his satisfaction at the count's prospects, either way. ”And since, after all,” he added, ”you mean so well to your cousin, it occurs to me that you might discover him by a very simple English process.”
”How?”
”Advertise that, if he will come to some place appointed, he will hear of something to his advantage.”
The count shook his head. ”He would suspect me, and not come.”
”But he was intimate with you. He joined an insurrection; you were more prudent. You did not injure him, though you may have benefited yourself.
Why should he shun you?”
”The conspirators forgive none who do not conspire; besides, to speak frankly, he thought I injured him.”
”Could you not conciliate him through his wife--whom you resigned to him?”
”She is dead,--died before he left the country.”
”Oh, that is unlucky! Still I think an advertis.e.m.e.nt might do good.
Allow me to reflect on that subject. Shall we now join Madame la Marquise?”
On re-entering the drawing-room, the gentlemen found Beatrice in full dress, seated by the fire, and reading so intently that she did not remark them enter.
”What so interests you, ma seuur?--the last novel by Balzac, no doubt?”
Beatrice started, and, looking up, showed eyes that were full of tears.
”Oh, no! no picture of miserable, vicious, Parisian life. This is beautiful; there is soul here.”
Randal took up the book which the marchesa laid down; it was the same which had charmed the circle at Hazeldean, charmed the innocent and fresh-hearted, charmed now the wearied and tempted votaress of the world.
”Hum,” murmured Randal; ”the parson was right. This is power,--a sort of a power.”
”How I should like to know the author! Who can he be? Can you guess?”
”Not I. Some old pedant in spectacles.”
”I think not, I am sure not. Here beats a heart I have ever sighed to find, and never found.”