Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier: A Novel

CHAPTER XVII. THE GARDEN AT ORVIETO

Soon after daybreak on the following morning the Cardinal’s courier arrived at Orvieto with tidings that his Eminence might be expected the same evening. It was a rare event, indeed, which honoured the villa with a visit from its princely owner; and great was the bustle and stir of preparation to receive him. The same activity prevailed within doors and without. Troops of men were employed in the gardens, on the terraces, and the various pleasure-grounds; while splendid suites of rooms, never opened but on such great occasions, were now speedily got in readiness and order.

Gerald wandered about amid this exciting turmoil, puzzled and confused. How was it that he fancied he had once seen something of the very same sort, exactly in the self-same place? Was this, then, another rush of that imagination which so persisted in tormenting him, making life a mere circle of the same events? As he moved from place to place, the conviction grew only stronger and stronger: this seemed the very statue he had helped to replace on its pedestal; here the very fountain he had cleared from weeds and fallen leaves; the flowers he had grouped in certain beds; the walks he had trimly raked; the rustic seats he had disposed beneath shady trees; all rose to his mind and distracted him by the difficulty of explaining them. As he walked up the great marble stairs and entered the spacious hall of audience, a whole scene of the past seemed to fill the space. The lovely girl – a mere child as she was, with golden hair and deep blue eyes – rose again before his memory, and his heart sank as he bethought him that the whole vision must have had no reality.

The rapid tramp of horses’ feet suddenly led him to the window, and he now saw the outriders, as they dashed up at speed, followed quickly after by three travelling carriages, each drawn by six horses, and escorted by mounted dragoons. Gerald did not wait to see his Eminence descend, but hastened to his room to dress, and compose his thoughts for the approaching interview.

The Chevalier had grown to be somewhat vain of his personal appearance. It was a Stuart trait, and sat not ungracefully upon him; and he now costumed himself with more than ordinary care. His dress was of a dark maroon velvet, over which he wore a scarf of his own tartan; the collar and decoration presented by the Cardinal York ornamenting the front of the dress, as well as the splendidly embossed dagger which once had graced the belt of the Prince Charles Edward. Though his toilet occupied him a considerable time, no summons came from his Eminence, either to announce his arrival or request a meeting; and Gerald, half pained by the neglect, and half puzzled lest the fault might possibly be ascribed to some defect of observance on his own part, at length took his hat and left the house for a stroll through the gardens.

As he wandered along listlessly, he at last gained a little grassy eminence, from which a wide view extended over a vast olive plain, traversed by a tiny stream. It was the very wood through which, years before, he had journeyed when he had fled from the villa to seek his fortune. Some indistinct, flitting thoughts of the event, the zigzag path along the river, the far-away mountains of the Maremma, were yet puzzling him, when he heard a light step on the gravel-walk near. He turned, and saw a young girl coming toward him, smiling, and with an extended hand. One glance showed him that she was singularly beautiful, and of a demeanour that announced high station.

‘Which of us is to say, “welcome here,” Chevalier? at all events, let one of us have the courage to speak it. I am your guest, or your host, whichever it please you best.’

‘The Contessa Ridolfi,’ said Gerald, as he kissed her hand respectfully.

‘I perceive,’ said she, laughing, ‘you have heard of my boldness, and guess my name at once; but, remember, that if I had waited to be presented to you by my uncle, I should have been debarred from thus clearing all formality at a bound, and asking you, as I now do, to imagine me one you have known long and well.’

‘I am unable to say whether the honour you confer on me or the happiness, be greater,’ said Gerald warmly.

‘Let it be the happiness, since the honour must surely come from your side,’ said she, in the same light, half-careless tone. ‘Give me your arm, and guide me through these gardens; you know them well, I presume.’

‘I have been your guest these four months and more, Contessa,’ said he, bowing.

‘So that this poor villa of ours may have its place in history, and men remember it as the spot where the young Prince sojourned. Nay, do not blush, Chevalier, or I shall think that the shame is for my boldness. When you know me better you will learn that I am one so trained to the licence of free speech that none are offended at my frankness.’

‘You shall never hear me complain of it,’ said Gerald quickly.

‘Come, then, and tell me freely, has this solitude grown intolerable; is your patience well-nigh worn out with those interminable delays of what are called “your friends”?’

‘I know not what you allude to. I came here to recover after a long illness, weak and exhausted. My fever had left me so low in energy, that I only asked rest and quietness: I found both at the villa. The calm monotony that might have wearied another, soothed and comforted me. Of what was real in my past life – what mere dreamland – I never could succeed in defining. If at one moment I seemed to any one’s eyes of princely blood and station, at the next I could not but see myself a mere adventurer, without friends, family, or home. I would have given the world for one kind friend to steady the wavering fabric of my mind, to bring back its wandering fancies, and tell me when my reason was aright.’

‘Will you take me for such a friend?’ said Guglia, in a soft, low voice.

‘Oh, do not ask me, if you mean it not in serious earnest,’ he urged rapidly. ‘I can bear up against the unbroken gloom of my future; I could not endure the changeful light of a delusive hope.’

‘But it need not be such. It is for you to decide whether you will accept of such a counsellor. First of all,’ added she hastily, and ere leaving him time to reply, ‘I am more deeply versed in your interests than you are perhaps aware. Intrusted by my uncle, the Cardinal, to deal with questions not usually committed to a young girl’s hands, I have seen most parts of the correspondence which concerns you; nay, more, I can and will show you copies of it. You shall see for yourself, what they have never yet left you to judge, whether it is for your own interest to await an eventuality that may never come, or boldly try to create the crisis others would bid you wait for; or lastly, there is another part to take, the boldest, perhaps, of all.’

‘And what may that be?’ broke in Gerald, with eagerness, for his interest was now most warmly engaged.

‘This must be for another time,’ said she quickly; ‘here comes his Eminence to meet us.’

And as she spoke, the Cardinal came forward, and with a mingled affection and respect embraced Gerald and kissed him on both cheeks.

CHAPTER XVIII. HOW THE TIME PASSED AT ORVIETO

Orvieto was a true villa palace (which only Italians understand how to build), and the grounds were on a scale of extent that suited the mansion. Ornamental terraces and gardens on every side, with tasteful alleys of trellised vines to give noon-day shade, and farther off again a dense pine forest, traversed by long alleys of grass, which even in the heat of summer were cool and shaded. These narrow roads, barely wide enough for two horsemen abreast, crossed and recrossed in the dark forest, ever leading between walls of the same dusky foliage, with scanty glimpses of a blue sky through the arched branches overhead.

If Guglia rode there for hours long with Gerald; if they strayed – often silently – not even a foot-fall heard on the smooth turf, you perhaps, know why; and if you do not, how am I, unskilled in such descriptions, to make you wiser? Well, it was even as you suspect: the petted child of fortune, the lovely niece of the great Cardinal, the beautiful Guglia, whose hand was the greatest prize of Rome, had conceived such an interest in Gerald, his fortunes and his fate, that she could not leave Orvieto.

In vain came pressing invitations from Albano and Terni, where she had promised to pass part of her autumn. In vain the lively descriptions of friends full of all the delights of Castellamare or Sorrento: the story of festivities and pleasures seemed poor and even vulgar with the life she led. Talk of illusions as you will, that of being in love is the only one that moulds the nature or elevates the heart! Out of its promptings come the heroism of the least venturesome or the poetry of the least romantic! Insensibly stealing into the affections of another, we have to descend into our own hearts for the secrets that win success; and how resolutely we combat all that is mean or unworthy in our nature, simply that we may offer a more pure sacrifice on the altar we kneel to!

And there and thus she lived, the flattered beauty – the young girl, to whom an atmosphere of homage and admiration seemed indispensable – whose presence was courted in the society of the great world, and whose very caprices had grown to become fashions – a sort of strange, half-real existence, each day so like another that time had no measure how it passed.

The library of the villa supplied them with ample material to study the history of the Stuarts; and in these pursuits they passed the mornings, carefully noting down the strange eventualities which determined their fate, and canvassing together in talk the traits which so often had involved them in misfortune. Gerald, now restored to full health, was a perfect type of the illustrious race he had sprung from: and not only was the resemblance in face and figure, but all the mannerisms of Charles Edward were reproduced in the son. The same easy, gentle, yielding disposition, dashed by impulses of the wildest daring, and darkened occasionally by moods of obstinacy; miserable under the thought of having offended, and almost more wretched when the notion of being forgiven imparted a sense of his own inferiority; he was one of those men whose minds are so many-sided that they seem to have no fixed character. Even now, though awakened to the thought of the great destiny that might one day befall him – assured as he felt of his birth and lineage – there were intervals in which no sense of ambition stirred him, when he would willingly accept the humblest lot in life should it only promise peace and tranquillity.

Strangely enough it was by these vacillations and changes of temperament that Guglia had attached herself so decisively to his fortunes. The very want which she supplied to his nature made the tie between them. The theory in her own heart was, that when called on for effort, whenever the occasion should demand the great personal qualities of courage and daring, Gerald would be pre-eminently distinguished, and show himself to the world a true Stuart.

While thus they lived a life of happiness, the Père Massoni was actively engaged in maturing plans for the future. For a considerable time back he had been watching the condition of Ireland with an intense feeling of anxiety. So far from the resistance to England having assumed the character of a struggle in favour of Catholicism, it had grown more and more to resemble the great convulsion in France which promised to ingulf all religions and all creeds. Though in a measure prepared for this in the beginning of the conflict, Massoni steadfastly trusted that the influence of the priests would as certainly bring the people back to the standards of the Church, and that eventually the contest would be purely between Rome and the Reformation. His last news from Ireland grievously damped the ardour of such hopes. The Presbyterians of the North – men called enemies of the ‘Church ‘ – were now the most trusted leaders of the movement; and how was he to expect that such men as these would accept a Stuart for their king?

For days, and even weeks did the crafty Père ponder over this difficult problem, and try to solve it in ways the most opposite. Why might not these Northerns, who must always be a mere minority, be employed at the outset of the struggle, and then, as the rebellion declared itself, be abandoned and thrown over? Why not make them the forlorn hope of the campaign, and so get rid of them entirely? Why should not the Chevalier boldly try his personal influence among them, promise future rewards and favours, ay, even more still? Why might he not adroitly have it hinted that he was, at heart, less a Romanist than was generally believed: that French opinions had taken a deep root in his nature, and the early teachings of Mirabeau born their true fruit? There was much in Gerald’s training and habit of mind which would favour this supposition, could he but be induced to play the game as he was directed. There was among the Stuart papers in Cardinal York’s keeping a curious memorandum of a project once entertained by the Pretender with respect to Charles Edward. It was a scheme to marry him to a natural daughter of Sir Robert Walpole, and thus conciliate the favour and even the support of that Minister – the strongest friend and ally of the Hanoverian cause. The Jesuit father had seen and read this remarkable paper, and deemed it a conception of the finest and most adroit diplomacy. It had even stimulated his own ardour to rival it in acuteness; to impose Gerald upon the Presbyterian party, as one covertly cherishing views similar to their own; to make them, a minority as they were, imagine that the future destinies of the country were in their keeping; to urge them on, in fact, to the van of the battle, that so they might stand between two fires, was his great conception, the only difficulty to which was how to prepare the young Chevalier for the part he was to play, and reconcile him to its duplicity!