Lord Kilgobbin

CHAPTER LXV

Lord Danesbury had arrived at Bruton Street to confer with certain members of the Cabinet who remained in town after the session, chiefly to consult with him. He was accompanied by his niece, Lady Maude, and by Walpole, the latter continuing to reside under his roof, rather from old habit than from any strong wish on either side.

Walpole had obtained a short extension of his leave, and employed the time in endeavouring to make up his mind about a certain letter to Nina Kostalergi, which he had written nearly fifty times in different versions and destroyed. Neither his lordship nor his niece ever saw him. They knew he had a room or two somewhere, a servant was occasionally encountered on the way to him with a breakfast-tray and an urn; his letters were seen on the hall-table; but, except these, he gave no signs of life – never appeared at luncheon or at dinner – and as much dropped out of all memory or interest as though he had ceased to be.

It was one evening, yet early – scarcely eleven o’clock – as Lord Danesbury’s little party of four Cabinet chiefs had just departed, that he sat at the drawing-room fire with Lady Maude, chatting over the events of the evening’s conversation, and discussing, as men will do at times, the characters of their guests.

‘It has been nearly as tiresome as a Cabinet Council, Maude!’ said he, with a sigh, ‘and not unlike it in one thing – it was almost always the men who knew least of any matter who discussed it most exhaustively.’

‘I conclude you know what you are going out to do, my lord, and do not care to hear the desultory notions of people who know nothing.’

‘Just so. What could a First Lord tell me about those Russian intrigues in Albania, or is it likely that a Home Secretary is aware of what is preparing in Montenegro? They get hold of some crotchet in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and assuming it all to be true, they ask defiantly, “How are you going to deal with that? Why did you not foresee the other?” and such like. How little they know, as that fellow Atlee says, that a man evolves his Turkey out of the necessities of his pocket, and captures his Constantinople to pay for a dinner at the “Frères.” What fleets of Russian gunboats have I seen launched to procure a few bottles of champagne! I remember a chasse of Kersch, with the café, costing a whole battery of Krupp’s breech-loaders!’

‘Are our own journals more correct?’

‘They are more cautious, Maude – far more cautious. Nine days’ wonders with us would be too costly. Nothing must be risked that can affect the funds. The share-list is too solemn a thing for joking.’

‘The Premier was very silent to-night,’ said she, after a pause.

‘He generally is in company: he looks like a man bored at being obliged to listen to people saying the things that he knows as well, and could tell better, than they do.’

‘How completely he appears to have forgiven or forgotten the Irish fiasco.’

‘Of course he has. An extra blunder in the conduct of Irish affairs is only like an additional mask in a fancy ball – the whole thing is motley; and asking for consistency would be like requesting the company to behave like arch-deacons.’

‘And so the mischief has blown over?’

‘In a measure it has. The Opposition quarrelled amongst themselves; and such as were not ready to take office if we were beaten, declined to press the motion. The irresponsibles went on, as they always do, to their own destruction. They became violent, and, of course, our people appealed against the violence, and with such temperate language and good-breeding that we carried the House with us.’

‘I see there was quite a sensation about the word “villain.”’

‘No; miscreant. It was miscreant – a word very popular in O’Connell’s day, but rather obsolete now. When the Speaker called on the member for an apology, we had won the day! These rash utterances in debate are the explosive balls that no one must use in battle; and if we only discover one in a fellow’s pouch, we discredit the whole army.’

‘I forget; did they press for a division?’

‘No; we stopped them. We agreed to give them a “special committee to inquire.” Of all devices for secrecy invented, I know of none like a “special committee of inquiry.” Whatever people have known beforehand, their faith will now be shaken in, and every possible or accidental contingency assume a shape, a size, and a stability beyond all belief. They have got their committee, and I wish them luck of it! The only men who could tell them anything will take care not to criminate themselves, and the report will be a plaintive cry over a country where so few people can be persuaded to tell the truth, and nobody should seem any worse in consequence.’

‘Cecil certainly did it,’ said she, with a certain bitterness. ‘I suppose he did. These young players are always thinking of scoring eight or ten on a single hazard: one should never back them!’

‘Mr. Atlee said there was some female influence at work. He would not tell what nor whom. Possibly he did not know.’

‘I rather suspect he did know. They were people, if I mistake not, belonging to that Irish castle – Kil – Kil-somebody, or Kil-something.’

‘Was Walpole flirting there? was he going to marry one of them?’

‘Flirting, I take it, must have been the extent of the folly. Cecil often said he could not marry Irish. I have known men do it! You are aware, Maude,’ and here he looked with uncommon gravity, ‘the penal laws have all been repealed.’

‘I was speaking of society, my lord, not the statutes,’ said she resentfully, and half suspicious of a sly jest.

‘Had she money?’ asked he curtly.

‘I cannot tell; I know nothing of these people whatever! I remember something – it was a newspaper story – of a girl that saved Cecil’s life by throwing herself before him – a very pretty incident it was; but these things make no figure in a settlement; and a woman may be as bold as Joan of Arc, and not have sixpence. Atlee says you can always settle the courage on the younger children.’

‘Atlee’s an arrant scamp,’ said my lord, laughing. ‘He should have written some days since.’

‘I suppose he is too late for the borough: the Cradford election comes on next week?’ Though there could not be anything more languidly indifferent than her voice in this question, a faint pinkish tinge flitted across her cheek, and left it colourless as before.

‘Yes, he has his address out, and there is a sort of committee – certain licensed-victualler people – to whom he has been promising some especial Sabbath-breaking that they yearn after. I have not read it.’

‘I have; and it is cleverly written, and there is little more radical in it than we heard this very day at dinner. He tells the electors, “You are no more bound to the support of an army or a navy, if you do not wish to fight, than to maintain the College of Surgeons or Physicians, if you object to take physic.” He says, “To tell me that I, with eight shillings a week, have an equal interest in resisting invasion as your Lord Dido, with eighty thousand per annum, is simply nonsense. If you,” cries he to one of his supporters, “were to be offered your life by a highwayman on surrendering some few pence or halfpence you carried in your pocket, you do not mean to dictate what my Lord Marquis might do, who has got a gold watch and a pocketful of notes in his. And so I say once more, let the rich pay for the defence of what they value. You and I have nothing worth fighting for, and we will not fight. Then as to religion – “’

‘Oh, spare me his theology! I can almost imagine it, Maude. I had no conception he was such a Radical.’

‘He is not really, my lord; but he tells me that we must all go through this stage. It is, as he says, like a course of those waters whose benefit is exactly in proportion to the way they disagree with you at first. He even said, one evening before he went away, “Take my word for it, Lady Maude, we shall be burning these apostles of ballot and universal suffrage in effigy one day; but I intend to go beyond every one else in the meanwhile, else the rebound will lose half its excellence.”’

‘What is this?’ cried he, as the servant entered with a telegram. ‘This is from Athens, Maude, and in cipher, too. How are we to make it out.’

‘Cecil has the key, my lord. It is the diplomatic cipher.’

‘Do you think you could find it in his room, Maude? It is possible this might be imminent.’

‘I shall see if he is at home,’ said she, rising to ring the bell. The servant sent to inquire returned, saying that Mr. Walpole had dined abroad, and not returned since dinner.

‘I’m sure you could find the book, Maude, and it is a small square-shaped volume, bound in dark Russia leather, marked with F. O. on the cover.’

‘I know the look of it well enough; but I do not fancy ransacking Cecil’s chamber.’

‘I do not know that I should like to await his return to read my despatch. I can just make out that it comes from Atlee.’

‘I suppose I had better go, then,’ said she reluctantly, as she rose and left the room.

Ordering the butler to precede and show her the way, Lady Maude ascended to a storey above that she usually inhabited, and found herself in a very spacious chamber, with an alcove, into which a bed fitted, the remaining space being arranged like an ordinary sitting-room. There were numerous chairs and sofas of comfortable form, a well-cushioned ottoman, smelling, indeed, villainously of tobacco, and a neat writing-table, with a most luxurious arrangement of shaded wax-lights above it.

A singularly well-executed photograph of a young and very lovely woman, with masses of loose hair flowing over her neck and shoulders, stood on a little easel on the desk, and it was, strange enough, with a sense of actual relief, Maude read the word Titian on the frame. It was a copy of the great master’s picture in the Dresden Gallery, and of which there is a replica in the Barberini Palace at Rome; but still the portrait had another memory for Lady Maude, who quickly recalled the girl she had once seen in a crowded assembly, passing through a murmur of admiration that no conventionality could repress, and whose marvellous beauty seemed to glow with the homage it inspired.

Scraps of poetry, copies of verses, changed and blotted couplets, were scrawled on loose sheets of paper on the desk; but Maude minded none of these, as she pushed them away to rest her arm on the table, while she sat gazing on the picture.

The face had so completely absorbed her attention – so, to say, fascinated her – that when the servant had found the volume he was in search of, and presented it to her, she merely said, ‘Take it to my lord,’ and sat still, with her head resting on her hands, and her eyes fixed on the portrait. ‘There may be some resemblance, there may be, at least, what might remind people of “the Laura “ – so was it called; but who will pretend that she carried her head with that swing of lofty pride, or that her look could rival the blended majesty and womanhood we see here! I do not – I cannot believe it!’

‘What is it, Maude, that you will not or cannot believe?’ said a low voice, and she saw Walpole standing beside her.

‘Let me first excuse myself for being here,’ said she, blushing. ‘I came in search of that little cipher-book to interpret a despatch that has just come. When Fenton found it, I was so engrossed by this pretty face that I have done nothing but gaze at it.’

‘And what was it that seemed so incredible as I came in?’

‘Simply this, then, that any one should be so beautiful.’

‘Titian seems to have solved that point; at least, Vasari tells us this was a portrait of a lady of the Guicciardini family.’

‘I know – I know that,’ said she impatiently; ‘and we do see faces in which Titian or Velasquez have stamped nobility and birth as palpably as they have printed loveliness and expression. And such were these women, daughters in a long line of the proud Patricians who once ruled Rome.’

‘And yet,’ said he slowly, ‘that portrait has its living counterpart.’

‘I am aware of whom you speak: the awkward angular girl we all saw at Rome, whom young gentlemen called the Tizziana.’

‘She is certainly no longer awkward, nor angular, now, if she were once so, which I do not remember. She is a model of grace and symmetry, and as much more beautiful than that picture as colour, expression, and movement are better than a lifeless image.’

‘There is the fervour of a lover in your words, Cecil,’ said she, smiling faintly.

‘It is not often I am so forgetful,’ muttered he; ‘but so it is, our cousinship has done it all, Maude. One revels in expansiveness with his own, and I can speak to you as I cannot speak to another.’

‘It is a great flattery to me.’

‘In fact, I feel that at last I have a sister – a dear and loving spirit who will give to true friendship those delightful traits of pity and tenderness, and even forgiveness, of which only the woman’s nature can know the needs.’

Lady Maude rose slowly, without a word. Nothing of heightened colour or movement of her features indicated anger or indignation, and though Walpole stood with an affected submissiveness before her, he marked her closely. ‘I am sure, Maude,’ continued he, ‘you must often have wished to have a brother.’

‘Never so much as at this moment!’ said she calmly – and now she had reached the door. ‘If I had had a brother, Cecil Walpole, it is possible I might have been spared this insult!’

The next moment the door closed, and Walpole was alone.

CHAPTER LXVI

‘I am right, Maude,’ said Lord Danesbury as his niece re-entered the drawing-room. ‘This is from Atlee, who is at Athens; but why there I cannot make out as yet. There are, according to the book, two explanations here. 491 means a white dromedary or the chief clerk, and B + 49 = 12 stands for our envoy in Greece or a snuffer-dish.’

‘Don’t you think, my lord, it would be better for you to send this up to Cecil? He has just come in. He has had much experience of these things.’

‘You are quite right, Maude; let Fenton take it up and beg for a speedy transcript of it. I should like to see it at once!’