Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier: A Novel

by Charles James Lever

  CHAPTER X. THE CARDINAL AT HIS DEVOTIONS

  If the night which followed the interview of the Pere Massoni withCarrol was one of deep anxiety, the morning did not bring any reliefto his cares. His first duty was to ask after Fitzgerald. The youth hadslept little, but lay tranquil and uncomplaining, and to all seemingindifferent either as to the strange place or the strange faces aroundhim. The keen-eyed servant, Giacomo, himself an humble member of theorder, quickly detected that he was suffering under some mental shock,and that the case was one where the mere physician could afford butlittle benefit.

  'He lies there quiet as a child,' said he, 'never speaking nor moving,his eyelids half drooped over his eyes, and save that now and then, atlong intervals, he breathes a low, faint sigh, you would scarce believehe was alive.'

  'I will see him,' said the Pere, as he gently opened the door, and stolenoiselessly across the room. A faint streak of light peering betweenthe drawn window-curtains, fell directly on the youth's face, showingit pale and emotionless, as Giacomo described it. As the Pere seatedhimself by the bedside, he purposely made a slight noise, to attractthe other's attention, but Gerald did not notice him, not even turninga look toward him. Massoni laid his finger on the pulse, the actionwas weak but regular; nothing to denote fever or excitement, only theevidence of great exhaustion or debility.

  'I have come to hear how you have rested,' said the Pere, in an accenthe could render soft as a woman's, 'and to welcome you to Rome.'

  A faint, very faint, smile was all the reply to this speech.

  'I am aware that you have gone through much suffering and peril,'continued the Pere, 'but with rest and kind care you will soon be wellagain. You are among friends, who are devoted to you.'

  A gentle movement of the brows, as if in assent, replied.

  'It may be that speaking would distress you; perhaps even my own wordsfatigue you. If so I will be satisfied to come and sit silently besideyou, till you are stronger and better.'

  'Si--si,' muttered Gerald faintly, and at the same time he essayed tosmile as it were in recognition.

  A quick convulsive twitch of impatience passed across the Pere's paleface, but so rapidly that it seemed a spasm, and the features were thenext moment calm as before; and now Massoni sat silently gazing onthe tranquil lineaments before him. Among the various studies of hislaborious life medicine had not been neglected, and now he addressedhimself to examine the condition and study the symptoms of the youth.The case was not of much bodily ailment, at least save in the exhaustionwhich previous illness had left. There was nothing like malady, butthere were signs of a mischief far deeper, more subtle, and lesscurable than mere physical ills. The look of vacancy--the half-meaningsmile--the dull languor, not alone in feature but in the way he lay--allpresented matter for grave and weighty fears. The very presence of thesesigns, unaccompanied by ailment, gave a gloomier aspect to the case,and led the Pere to reflect whether such traits had any connectionwith descent. The strong resemblance which the young man bore to theStuarts--and there were few families where the distinctive traits weremore marked--induced Massoni to consider the question with reference to_them_. They are indeed a race whose wayward impulses and rash resolvestook oftentimes but little guidance of reason; but these were mere signsof eccentricity and not insanity. But might not the one be precursorto the other; might not the frail judgment, which sufficed for theevery-day cares of life, utterly give way in seasons of greater trial?Thus reasoning and communing with himself he sat till the hour struckwhich apprised him of his audience with the Cardinal.

  It was not yet the season when Rome was filled by its higher classes,and Massoni could repair to the palace of the Cardinal without any ofthe secrecy observable at other periods. Still he deemed it more inaccordance with the humility he affected to seek admission by a smallgarden gate, which opened on the Pincian hill. The little portaladmitted him into a garden such as only Italy possesses. The gardens ofEngland are unrivalled for their peculiar excellence, for the exquisiteflavour of their fruit, and in their perfection of order and neatnessthey stand unequalled in the world; the trim quaintness of the Dutchtaste has also its special beauty, and nowhere can be seen such gorgeouscolouring in flower-pots, such splendour of tulip and ranunculus: butthere is in Italy a rich blending of culture and wildness--a mingledsplendour and simplicity, just as in the great halls of the marblepalace on the Neva, where the haughtiest noble in his diamond pelisse,stands side by side with the simple Boyard in his furs: so in the *golden land,' the cactus and the mimosa, the orange and the pear-tree,the cedar of Lebanon and the stone-pine of the north, are commingledand interleaved; all signs of a soil which can supply nourishment to therarest and most delicate, as well as to the hardiest of plants.

  In this lovely wilderness, with many a group in marble, many abeautifully-carved fountain, many an ornamental shrine, half hidden inits leafy recesses, the Pere now walked, screening his steps as he went,from that great range of windows which opened on a grand terrace--aprecaution rather the result of habit than called for by thecircumstance of the time. A fish-pond of some extent, with a smallisland> occupied the centre of the garden; the island itself beingornamented by a beautiful little shrine dedicated to our Lady of Rimini,the birth-place of the Cardinal. To this sacred spot his Eminence wasaccustomed to repair for secret worship each morning of his life. As ameasure of respectful reverence for the great man's devotions, theplace was studiously secluded from all intrusion, and evenstrangers--admitted, as at rare intervals they were, to visit thegardens--were never suffered to invade the sacred precincts of theisland.

  A strangely contrived piece of mechanism appended to the little wicketthat formed the entrance always sufficed to show if his Eminencewas engaged in prayer, and consequently removed from all pretext ofinterruption. This was an apparatus, by which the face of a beautifullypainted Madonna became suddenly covered by a veil, a signal that noneof the Cardinal's nearest of blood would have dared to violate. It was,indeed, to the hours of daily seclusion thus piously passed the Cardinalowed that character for sanctity which eminently distinguished him inthe Church. A day never went over in which he did not devote at theleast an hour to this sacred duty, and the air of absorption, as herepaired to the shrine, and the look of intense pre-occupation hebrought away, vouched for the depth of his pious musings.

  As Massoni arrived at the narrow causeway which led over to theisland, he perceived that the veil of the Madonna was lowered. Heknew, therefore, at once that the Cardinal was there, and he stopped toconsider what course he should adopt, whether to loiter about the gardentill his Eminence should appear, or repair to the palace and await him.The Pere knew that the Cardinal was to leave Rome by midday, to reachAlbano to dinner, and he mused over the shortness of the time theirinterview must last.

  'This is no common emergency,' thought he at last; 'here is a casefraught with the most tremendous consequences. If this scheme be engagedin, the whole of Europe may soon be in arms--the greatest convulsionthat ever shook the Continent may result; and out of the struggle who isto foresee what principles may be the victors!

  'I will go to him at once,' said he resolutely. 'Events succeed eachother too rapidly nowadays for more delay. The "Terror" in France hasonce more turned men's minds to the peaceful security of a monarchy. Letus profit by the moment'; and with this he traversed the narrow bridgeand reached the island.

  A thick copse of ornamental planting screened the front of the littleshrine. Hastily passing through this, he stood within a few yards of thebuilding, when his steps were quickly arrested by the sound of a voicewhose accents could not be mistaken for the Cardinal's. There wasbesides something distinctively foreign in the pronunciation thatmarked the speaker for a stranger. Curious to ascertain who might be theintruder in a spot so sacred, Massoni stepped noiselessly through thebrushwood, and gained a little loop-holed aperture beside the altar,from which the whole interior of the shrine could be seen. Seated onone of the marble steps below the altar was the Cardinal, a loosedressin
g-gown of rich fur wrapped round him, and a cap of the samematerial on his head. Directly in front of him, and also seated onthe pedestal of a column, was a man in a Carthusian robe, patched anddiscoloured, and showing many signs of age and poverty. The wearer,however, was rubicund and jovial-looking, though the angles of the mouthwere somewhat dragged, and the wrinkles at the eyes were deep-worn. Thegeneral expression, however, was that of one whose nature accepted thestruggles of life manfully and cheerfully. It was not till after someminutes of close scrutiny that Massoni could recall the features, but atlength he remembered that it was the well-known Carthusian friar, GeorgeKelly, the former companion of Prince Charles Edward. If their positionsin life were widely different, Kelly did not suffer the disparity toinfluence his manner, but talked with all the ease and familiarity of anequal.

  Whatever interest the scene might have had for Massoni was speedilyincreased by the first words which met his ears. It was the Cardinal whosaid--

  'I own to you, Kelly, until what you have told me I had put little faithin the whole story of this youth; and there is then really such?'

  'There is, or at least there was, your Eminence. I remember as well asif it was yesterday the evening he came to the palace to see the Prince.A poor countryman of my own, a Carthusian, brought him, and tookhim back again to the college. The boy was afterward sent to a villasomewhere near Orvieto.'

  'Was the youth acknowledged by his Royal Highness as his son?' asked theCardinal.

  'The Prince never spoke of him to me till the day before his death. Hethen said, "Can you find out that Carthusian for me, Kelly?--I shouldlike to speak with him." I told him that he had long since left Romeand even Italy. The last tidings of him came from Ireland, where he wasliving as a dependant on some reduced family.

  '"There is no time to fetch him from Ireland," said his Highness; "andyet, Kelly, I 'd give a thousand pounds that he were here." He thenasked me if I remembered a certain boy, dressed like a colleger ofthe Jesuits, who came one night long ago to the palace with this sameCarthusian.

  'I said, yes; that though his Royal Highness believed that I was awayfrom Rome that night, I came back post-haste from Albano; and findingmyself in one of the corridors, I waited till Fra Luke came out from hisinterview, with the boy beside him.

  '"True, true, Kelly; I meant you to have known nothing of this visit. Sothen you saw the boy? What thought you of him?"

  '"I saw and marked him well, for his fair hair and skin were sodistinctively English, they made a deep impression upon me."

  '"He had the mouth, too, Kelly--a little pouting and over full-lipped.Did you mark that?"

  '"No, sire; I did not observe him so closely."

  '"How poor and ragged the child was! his very shoes were broken. Did yousee his shoes?--and that frail bit of serge was all his covering againstthe keen blast. O George," cried he, as his lip shook with emotion,"what would you say if that poor boy, all wretched and wayworn asyou saw him, were the true heir of a throne, and that the proudest inEurope? What a lesson for human greatness that! It was a scurvy trickyou played me that night, sir," said he, quickly changing, for hismoods were ever thus, and you never could guess how long any theme wouldengage him--"a scurvy trick, sir, to pry into what your master desiredyou should not know. I had my own good reasons for what I did, andit ill became you to contravene them; but it was like your cloth--ay,sirrah, it was the trick of all your kind."

  'Out of this he fell a-weeping over the fallen fortunes of his house,asking again and again if history contained anything its equal;and saying that other dynasties had fallen through their crimes andcruelties, but that his house had been ruined by trustfulness andgenerosity; and so he forgot the boy and all about him.'

  'And think you it was to this youth that his Royal Highness bequeathedthe sum mentioned in his will, together with his George, the Grand Crossof Malta, and the St. John of Jerusalem, for so the Cardinal York tellsme the bequest runs?'

  'As to that I can say nothing,' Kelly replied.

  'I have heard,' said the Cardinal again, 'that in a sealed letter tohis brother York the Prince acknowledges this boy as his son, born inwedlock, his mother being of an ancient and noble house.' Then quicklychanging his tone, he asked, 'How are we to find him, Kelly? Do youbelieve that he still lives?'

  'I have no means of knowing; but if I wished to trace a man, not merelyin Europe, but through the globe itself, I am aware of but one police totrust to.'

  'And that?'

  'The Jesuits: they are everywhere; and everywhere cautious, painstaking,and trustworthy; they are well skilled in pursuits like these; and evenwhen they fail--and they seldom fail--they never compromise those whoemploy them.'

  'Well,' said the Cardinal, 'they have failed here. They have been on thetrack of this young fellow for years back; and when I tell you that thecraftiest of them all, Massoni, has not been able to find a clue to him,what will you say?'

  'Why, that he must be dead and buried, your Eminence,' broke in Kelly.

  'To that conclusion have I come myself, Fra Kelly. Had he been alivehe had come long since to claim this costly inheritance. Seven hundredthousand Roman scudi, the Palazzo Albuquerque, at Albano, with all itssplendid pictures and jewels, worth double the whole----'

  'Egad, I had come out of my grave to assert my right to such a bequest,'said Kelly, laughing. 'Has the Cardinal York made search for him, yourEminence?' said he, hastily correcting his levity.

  'The Cardinal York is not likely to disturb himself with such cares;and as the legacy lapses, in default of claimant, to the convent of St.Lazarus of Medina, he probably deems that it will be as well bestowed.'

  'Lazarus will have fallen upon some savory crumbs this time,' mutteredKelly, whose disposition to jest seemed beyond all his self-control.

  'It was this very day Massoni hoped to have brought me some tidings ofthe youth, said the Cardinal, rising, 'and he has not appeared. It mustbe as you have said, Kelly; the grave has closed over him. There is now,therefore, a great danger to guard against: substitution of some otherfor him--not by Massoni; he is a man of probity and honour; but he maybe imposed on by others. It is a fraud which would well repay all itstrouble.'

  'There is but one could detect the trick--that Luke M'Manus, theCarthusian I have mentioned to your Eminence. He knew the boy well, andwas intrusted by the Prince to take charge of him; but he is away inIreland.'

  'But could be fetched, if necessary,' said Caraffa, half musing, as hemoved toward the door.

  Massoni did not wait to hear more, but stealthily threading his waythrough the copse, he gained the garden, and retracing his steps,returned to the convent. Ascending to his chamber by a private stair,he gave his servant orders to say that he was indisposed, and could notreceive any one.

  'So, then, your Eminence,' said he bitterly, as he sank into a chair,'you would underplot me here. Let us see who can play his cards best.'