Part 153 (1/2)
”We arrived at the house. I dismounted to open the carriage-door. The count gave me one look. 'Beppo says you have known the sea.'
”'Excellency, yes. I am a Genoese.'
”'Ha! how is that? Beppo is a Lombard.'--Admire the readiness with which I redeemed my blunder.
”'Excellency, it pleased Heaven that Beppo should be born in Lombardy, and then to remove my respected parents to Genoa, at which city they were so kindly treated that my mother, in common grat.i.tude, was bound to increase its population. It was all she could do, poor woman. You see she did her best.'
”The count smiled, and said no more. The door opened, I followed him; your daughter can tell you the rest.”
”And you risked your life in that den of miscreants! n.o.ble friend!”
”Risked my life,--no; but I risked the count's. There was one moment when my hand was on my trigger, and my soul very near the sin of justifiable homicide. But my tale is done. The count is now on the river, and will soon be on the salt seas, though not bound to Norway, as I had first intended. I could not inflict that frigid voyage on his sister. So the men have orders to cruise about for six days, keeping aloof from sh.o.r.e, and they will then land the count and the marchesa, by boat, on the French coast. That delay will give time for the prince to arrive at Vienna before the count could follow him.”
”Would he have that audacity?”
”Do him more justice! Audacity, faith! he does not want for that. But I dreaded not his appearance at Vienna with such evidence against him.
I dreaded his encountering the prince on the road, and forcing a duel, before his character was so blasted that the prince could refuse it; and the count is a dead shot of course,--all such men are!”
”He will return, and you--”
”I! Oh, never fear; he has had enough of me. And now, my dear friend,--now that Violante is safe once more under your own roof; now that my honoured mother must long ere this have been satisfied by Leonard, who left us to go to her, that our success has been achieved without danger, and, what she will value almost as much, without scandal; now that your foe is powerless as a reed floating on the water towards its own rot, and the Prince Von -------is perhaps about to enter his carriage on the road to Dover, charged with the mission of restoring to Italy her worthiest son,--let me dismiss you to your own happy slumbers, and allow me to wrap myself in my cloak, and s.n.a.t.c.h a short sleep on the sofa, till yonder gray dawn has mellowed into riper day.
My eyes are heavy, and if you stay here three minutes longer, I shall be out of reach of hearing, in the land of dreams. Buona notte!”
”But there is a bed prepared for you.”
Harley shook his head in dissent, and composed himself at length on the sofa.
Riccabocca, bending, wrapped the cloak round his guest, kissed him on the forehead, and crept out of the room to rejoin Jemima, who still sat up for him, nervously anxious to learn from him those explanations which her considerate affection would not allow her to ask from the agitated and exhausted Violante. ”Not in bed!” cried the sage, on seeing her.
”Have you no feelings of compa.s.sion for my son that is to be? Just, too, when there is a reasonable probability that we can afford a son?”
Riccabocca here laughed merrily, and his wife threw herself on his shoulder, and cried for joy.
But no sleep fell on the lids of Harley L'Estrange. He started up when his host had left him, and paced the apartment, with noiseless but rapid strides. All whim and levity had vanished from his face, which, by the light of the dawn, seemed death-like pale. On that pale face there was all the struggle and all the anguish of pa.s.sion.
”These arms have clasped her,” he murmured; ”these lips have inhaled her breath! I am under the same roof, and she is saved,--saved evermore from danger and from penury, and forever divided from me. Courage, courage!
Oh, honour, duty; and thou, dark memory of the past,--thou that didst pledge love at least to a grave,--support, defend me! Can I be so weak!”
The sun was in the wintry skies when Harley stole from the house. No one was stirring except Giacomo, who stood by the threshold of the door, which he had just unbarred, feeding the house-dog. ”Good-day,” said the servant, smiling. ”The dog has not been of much use, but I don't think the padrone will henceforth grudge him a breakfast. I shall take him to Italy, and marry him there, in the hope of improving the breed of our native Lombard dogs.”
”Ah,” said Harley, ”you will soon leave our cold sh.o.r.es. May suns.h.i.+ne settle on you all!” He paused, and looked up at the closed windows wistfully.
”The signorina sleeps there,” said Giacomo, in a husky voice, ”just over the room in which you slept.”
”I knew it,” muttered Harley. ”An instinct told me of it. Open the gate; I must go home. My excuses to your lord, and to all.”
He turned a deaf ear to Giacomo's entreaties to stay till at least the signorina was up,--the signorina whom he had saved. Without trusting himself to speak further, he quitted the demesne, and walked with swift strides towards London.
CHAPTER X.