Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier: A Novel

CHAPTER IV. THE PRINCE’S CHAMBER

Brief as Kelly’s absence had been, it was enough to have obliterated from the Prince’s mind all the reasons for his going. No sooner was he alone than he drank away, muttering to himself, as he filled his glass, snatches of old Jacobite songs – words of hope and encouragement; or at times, with sad and broken utterance, phrases of the very deepest despondency.

It was in this half-dreamy state that Kelly found him as he entered. Scotland – Rome – the court of France – the château at St. Germains – the shelling where he sought refuge in Skye – the deck of the French privateer that landed him at Brest – were, by turns, the scenes of his imagination; and it was easy to mark how, through all the windings of his fancy, an overweening sense of his own adventurous character upheld and sustained him. If he called up at times traits of generous devotion and loyalty – glorious instances wherein his followers rose to the height of heroes – by some artful self-complacency he was ever sure to ascribe these to the great cause they fought for; or, oftener still, to his own commanding influence and the fascination of his presence. In the midst of all, however, would break forth some traits that bespoke a nobler nature. In one of these was it that he alluded to the proposition of Cardinal Tencin, to make the cession of Ireland the price of the French adhesion to his cause. ‘No, no, Monsieur le Cardinal,’ cried he several times energetically; ‘tout ou rien! tout ou rien!… Must not my cause have been a poor one, when he dared to make me such an offer? Ay, Kelly, and I swear to you he did so!’

These last words were the first that showed a consciousness of the other’s presence.

‘The Dutchman was better than that, George, eh? – a partition of the kingdom! – never, never. Ireland, too! The very men who stood truest to me – the very men who never counselled retreat. Think of Lovatt, George. If you had but seen him that day! He could not bide the time I took to eat a morsel of breakfast, so eager was he to be rid of me. I laughed outright at his impatience, and said that he remembered but the worst half of the old Highland adage which tells you “to speed the parting guest.” He never offered me a change of linen, George, and I had worn the same clothes from the day before Culloden. “Wae’s me for Prince Charlie!”’

‘It’s a proud thing for me to hear how you speak of my countrymen, sire,’ said Kelly.

‘Glorious fellows they were, every man of them!’ cried the Prince with enthusiasm. ‘Light-hearted and buoyant, when all others looked sad and downcast; always counselling the bold course, and readier to do than say it! I never met – if I ever heard of – but one Irishman who was not a man of honour. He was enough, perhaps, to leaven a whole nation – a low, mean sycophant, cowardly, false, and foul-tongued; a fellow to belie you and betray you – to track you into evil that others might stare at you there. I never thought ill of mankind till I knew him. Do you know whom I mean – eh, George?’

‘Faith, if the portrait be not intended for myself, I am at a loss to guess,’ said Kelly good-humouredly.

‘So it is, you arch-scoundrel; and, shameless though you be, does it never occur to you how you will go down to posterity? The corrupter of a Prince; the fellow who debauched and degraded him!’

‘Isn’t it something that posterity will ever hear of me at all?’ said Kelly. ‘Is it not fame, at any rate? If there should be any records of our life together, who knows but a clever commentator will find out that but for me and my influence the Prince of Wales would have been a downright beast? – “that Kelly humanised your Royal Highness, kept you from all the contamination of cardinals and scheming Monsignori, rallied your low spirits, comforted your dark hours, and enjoyed your bright ones.”’

‘For what – for what? what was his price?’ cried Charles eagerly.

‘Because he felt in his heart that, sooner or later, you ‘d be back, King of England and Ireland, and George Kelly wouldn’t be forgotten. No, faith; Archbishop of Westminster; and devil a less I’d be – that’s the price, if you wish to hear it!’

The Prince laughed heartily, as he ever did when the friar gave way to his impertinent humour, and then, sitting up in his bed, told Kelly to order coffee. To his last hour, coffee seemed to exercise the most powerful effect on him, clearing his faculties after hours of debauch, and enabling him to apply himself to business when he appeared to be utterly exhausted. Kelly, who well knew how to adapt himself to each passing shade of temperament, followed the Prince into a small dressing-room in silence, and remained standing at a short distance behind his chair.

‘Tell Conway,’ said he, pointing to a mass of papers on the table, ‘that these must wait. I ‘ll go down to Albano tomorrow or next day for a change of air. I ‘ll not hear of anything till I return. Cardinal Altieri knows better than I do what Sir Horace Mann writes home to England. This court is in perfect understanding with St. James’s. As to the Countess, Kelly, let it not be spoken of again; you hear me? What paper is that in your hand?’

‘A petition, I believe, sire; at least, the quarter it comes from would so bespeak it.’

‘Throw it on the fire, then. Is it not enough to live thus, but that I must be reminded thirty, forty times a day of my poverty and incapacity? Am I to be flouted with my fallen fortune? On the fire with it, at once!’

‘Poor Luke’s prayers were offered at an untimely moment,’ said Kelly, untying the scroll, as if preparing to obey. ‘Maybe, after all, he is asking for a new rosary, or a pair of sandals. Shall I read it, sire?’

The Prince made no reply, and Kelly, who thoroughly understood his humour, made no further effort to obtain a hearing for his friend; but, tearing the long scroll in two, he muttered the first line that caught his eye:

‘"Petition of Mary Fitzgerald.”’

‘What – of – whom? Fitzgerald! what Fitzgerald?’ cried Charles, catching the other’s wrist with a sudden grasp.

‘"Sister of Grace Géraldine.”’

The words were not well uttered when Charles snatched the paper from Kelly’s hand, and drew near to the lamp.

‘Leave me; wait in the room without, Kelly!’ said he; and the tone of his voice implied a command not to be gainsaid. The Prince now flattened out the crumpled document before him, holding the fragments close together; but, although he bent over them attentively for several minutes, he made little progress in their contents, for drop by drop the hot tears rose to his eyes, and fell heavily on the paper. Gradually, too, his head declined, till at last it fell forward on the table, where he lay, sobbing deeply. It was a long time before he arose from this attitude; and then his furrowed cheeks and glazed eyes told of intense sorrow. ‘What ruin have I brought everywhere!’ was the exclamation that broke from him, in a voice tremulous with agony. ‘Kinloch said truly: “We must have sinned heavily, to be so heavily cursed!”’ Again and again did he bend over the paper, and, few as were the lines, it was long before he could read them through, such was the gush of emotion they excited. ‘Was there ever a cause so hallowed by misfortune?’ cried he, in an accent of anguish. ‘Oh! Grace, had you been spared to me, I might have been other than this. But, if it were to be – if it were indeed fated that I should become the thing I am, thank God you have not lived to see it! George,’ cried he suddenly, ‘who brought this paper?’

Kelly came at once at his call, and replied that the bearer was a poor friar, by name MacManus.

‘Let me see him alone,’ said the Prince; and the next moment Fra Luke entered the chamber, and, with a low and deferential gesture, stooped down to kiss his hand. ‘You are an Irishman.’ said Charles, speaking with a thick but rapid utterance; ‘from none of your countrymen have I met with anything but loyalty and affection. Tell me, then, frankly, what you know of this paper – who wrote it?’

‘I did, myself, your Royal Highness,’ said Luke, trembling all over with fear.

‘Its contents are all true – strictly true?’

‘As the words of this holy Book.’ said Luke, placing his hand on his breviary.

‘Why were they not made known to me before – answer me that?’ cried Charles angrily.

‘I’ll tell your Royal Highness why,’ replied Luke, who gained courage as he was put upon the defensive. ‘She that ‘s gone – the Heavens be her bed! – made her sister promise, in her last hour, never to ask nor look for favour or benefit from your Royal Highness.’

‘I will not believe this,’ broke in Charles indignantly; ‘you are more than bold, sir, to dare to tell me so.’

‘’Tis true as Gospel,’ replied the friar. ‘Her words were: “Let there be one that went down to the grave with the thought that loving him was its best reward! and leave me to think that I live in his memory as I used in his heart.”’

The Prince turned away, and drew his hand across his eyes.

‘How came she here – since when?’ asked he suddenly.

‘Four years back; we came together. I bore her company all the way from Ireland, and on foot too, just to put the child into the college here.’

‘And she has been in poverty all this while?’

‘Poverty! faith, you might call it distress! – keeping a little trattoria in the Viccolo d’Orso, taking sewing, washing – whatever she could; slaving and starving, just to get shoes and the like for the boy.’

‘How comes it, then, that she has yielded at last to write me this?’ said Charles, who, in proportion as his self-accusings grew more poignant, sought to turn reproach on any other quarter.

‘She didn’t, nor wouldn’t,’ said the Fra; ‘’twas I did it myself. I told her that she might ease her conscience, by never accepting anything; that I’d write the petition and go up with it, and that all I ‘d ask was a trifle for the child.’

‘She loves him, then,’ said Charles tenderly. The friar nodded his head slowly twice, and muttered, ‘God knows she does.’

‘And does he repay her affection?’

‘How can he? Sure he doesn’t know her; he never sees her. When we were on the way here, he always thought it was his nurse she was; and from that hour to this he never set eyes on her.’

‘What motive was there for all this?’

‘Just to save him the shame among the rest, that they couldn’t say his mother’s sister was in rags and wretchedness, without a meal to eat.’

‘She never sees him, then?’

‘Only when he walks out with the class, every Friday; they come down the hill from the Capitol, and then she’s there, watching to get a look at him.’

‘And he – what is he like?’

The friar stepped back, and gazed at the Prince from head to foot in silence, and then at length said: ‘He’s like a Prince, sorrow less! The black serge gown, the coarse shoes, the square cap, ugly as they are, can’t disfigure him; and though they cut off his beautiful hair, that curled half-way down his back, they couldn’t spoil him. He has the great dark blue eyes of his mother, and the long lashes, almost girlish to look at.’

‘He’s mild and gentle, then?’ said Charles pensively.

‘Indeed and I won’t tell you a lie,’ said Luke, half mournfully, ‘but that ‘s just what I believe he isn’t. The sub-rector says there’s nothing he couldn’t learn, either in the sciences or the humanities. He can write some of the ancient and three of the modern tongues. His disputations got him the medal; but somehow – ’

‘Well – go on. Somehow – ’

‘He’s wild – wild,’ said the friar, and as if he was glad to have found the exact word he wanted; ‘he ‘d rather go out on the Campagna there and ride one of the driver’s ponies all day, than he ‘d walk in full procession with all the cardinals. He ‘d like to be fighting the shepherds’ dogs, wicked as they are, or goading their mad cattle till they turn on him. Many a day they ‘ve caught him at that sport; and, if I ‘m not mistaken, he’s in punishment now, though Mrs. Mary doesn’t know it, for putting a ram inside the railings of a fountain, so that the neighbours durstn’t go near to draw water. ‘Tis diversions like these has made him as ragged and tattered as he is.’

‘Bad stuff for the cloister,’ said Charles, with a faint smile.

‘Who knows? Sure Cardinal Guidotti was at every mischief when a boy; and there’s Gardoni, the secretary of the Quirinal, wasn’t he the terror of the city with his pranks?’

‘Can I see this boy – I mean, could he be brought here without his knowing or suspecting to whom he was presented?’

‘Sure, if Kelly was to – ’

‘Ay, ay, I know as well as you do.’ broke in the Prince, ‘George Kelly has craft and cunning enough for more than that; but supposing, my worthy Fra, that I did not care to intrust Kelly with this office: supposing that, for reasons known to myself, I wished this matter a secret, can you hit upon the means of bringing the lad here, that I might see and speak with him?’

‘It should be after dark, your Royal Highness, or he would know the palace again, and then find out who lived in it.’

‘Well, be it so.’

‘Then there’s the rules of the college; without a special leave a student cannot leave the house, and even then he must have a professor with him.’

‘A cardinal’s order would, of course, be sufficient,’ said the Prince.

‘To be sure it would, sir,’ said the friar, with a gesture that showed how implicitly his confidence was given to such a conjuncture.

‘The matter shall be done then, and thus: on Tuesday next Kelly goes to Albano, and will not return till Wednesday or Thursday evening. At seven o’clock on Tuesday evening you will present yourself at the college, and ask for the president: you will only have to say that you are come for the youth Fitzgerald. He will be at once given into your charge; drive then at once to the Corso, where you can leave the carriage, and proceed hither on foot. When you arrive here, you shall be admitted at once. One only caution I have to give you, friar, and it is this: upon your reserve and discretion it depends whether I ever befriend this boy, or cast him off for ever. Should one syllable of this interview transpire – should I ever discover that, under any pretence or from any accident, you have divulged what has passed between us here – and discover it I must, if it be so – from that instant I cease to take interest in him. I know your cloth well; you can be secret if you will: let this be an occasion for the virtue. I need not tell you more; nor will I add one threat to enforce my caution. The boy’s own fortune in life is on the issue; that will be enough.’

‘Is Mrs. Mary to be intrusted with the secret?’ said the Fra timidly.

‘No; not now at least.’ The Prince sat down, and leaned his forehead on his hand in thought. At length he said: ‘The boy will ask you, in all likelihood, whither you are leading him. You must say that a countryman of his own, a man of some influence, and who knew his friends, desires to see and speak with him. That he is one with whom he may be frank and open-hearted; free to tell whatever he feels; whether he likes his present life or seeks to change it. He is to address me as the Count, and be careful yourself to give me no higher title. I believe I have said all.’

‘If Kelly asks me what was my business with your Royal Highness?’

‘Ay; well thought of. Say it was a matter of charity; and take these few crowns, that you may show him as you pass out.’

‘Well, did you succeed?’ asked Kelly, as the poor friar, flushed and excited from the emotion of his interview, entered the antechamber.

‘I did indeed; and may the saints in heaven stand to you for the same! It ‘s a good work you done, and you ‘ll have your reward!’

‘Egad,’ cried Kelly, in a tone of levity, ‘if I had any friends among the saints, I must have tried their patience pretty hard these last eight or nine years; but who is this Mary Fitzgerald – I just caught the name on the paper?’

‘She’s – she’s – she’s – a countrywoman of our own,’ stammered out Fra Luke, while he moved uneasily from foot to foot, and fumbled with his hands up the sleeves of his robe.

‘It was lucky for you, then, we were just talking about Ireland before you went in. He was saying how true and staunch the Irish always showed themselves.’

‘And does he talk of them times?’ asked the Fra in astonishment.

‘Ay, by the hour. Sometimes it’s breaking day before I go to bed, he telling me about all his escapes and adventures. I could fill a book with stories of his.’

‘Musha! but I’d like to hear them,’ cried Luke with honest enthusiasm.

‘Come up here, then – let me see what evening – it mustn’t be Tuesday – nor Wednesday – maybe, indeed, I won’t be back before Friday. Oh, there’s the bell now; that’s for me,’ cried he; and before he could fix the time he hurried off to the Prince’s chamber.

CHAPTER V. AFTER DARK

It was a long and weary day to the poor friar, watching for that Tuesday evening when he should appear at the gate of the Jesuits’ College and ask for the young Fitzgerald. He felt, too, as though some amount of responsibility had been imposed on him to which he was unequal. It seemed to his simple intelligence as if it were a case that required skill and dexterity. The rector might possibly ask this, or wish to know that; and then, how was he to respect the secrecy he had pledged to the Prince? or was he to dare to deceive the great president of the college? Supposing, too, all these difficulties over, what of the youth himself? How should he answer the inquiries he was certain to make – whither he was going – with what object – and to whom? Greater than all these personal cares was his anxiety that the boy should please his Royal Highness; that the impression he made should be favourable; that his look and bearing might interest the Prince and ensure his future advancement. Let us own that Fra Luke had his grave misgivings on this score. From all he could pick up through the servitors of the convent, Gerald was a wild, headstrong youth, constantly ‘in punishment,’ and regarded by the superiors as the great instigator of every infraction to the discipline of the college. ‘What will a prince think of such an unruly subject?’ was the sad question the simple-hearted friar ever posed to himself. ‘And if the rector only send a report of him, he’ll have no chance at all.’ With this sorrowful thought he brought his reflections to a close; and, taking out his beads, set himself vigorously to implore the intercession of the saints in a cause intrusted to hands so weak and unskilful as his own.

The grim old gate of the college, flanked with its two low towers, looked gloomy enough as the evening closed in. The little aperture, too, through which questions were asked or answered, was now shut up for the night, and all intercourse with the world without suspended. The Fra had yet a full hour to wait, and he was fain to walk briskly to and fro, to warm his blood, chilled by the cold wind that came over the Campagna. For a while the twinkling of a stray light, high up in the building, set him a-thinking where the cell of the boy might be; gradually these lights disappeared, and all was wrapped in gloom and darkness, when suddenly the chapel became illuminated, and the rich, full swell of an organ toned out its solemn sounds on the still night. The brief prelude over, there followed one of those glorious old chants of the church which combine a strain of intense devotion with a highly exalted poetic feeling. In a perfect flood of harmony the sounds blended, until the very air seemed to hold them suspended. They ceased; and then, like the softest melody of a flute, a young voice arose alone, and, soaring upward, uttered a passage of seraphic sweetness. It was as though the song of some angelic spirit, telling of hope and peace; and, as a long, thrilling shake concluded the strain, the loud thunder of the organ and the full swell of the choir closed the service. The moment after, all was silent and in darkness.

Bell after bell, from the great city beneath, tolled out seven o’clock; and Fra Luke knocked modestly at the gate of the college. His visit appeared to have been expected, for he was admitted at once and conducted to the large hall, which formed the waiting-room of the college. The friar had not long to wait; for scarcely had he taken his seat when the door opened, and young Fitzgerald appeared. Advancing with an easy air, and a degree of gracefulness that contrasted strangely with his poverty-struck dress, the boy said, ‘I am told you wish to speak to me, father.’

‘Are you Gerald Fitzgerald, my son?’ asked Fra Luke softly.

‘Yes; that’s my name.’