In Direst Peril Part 17

"Thank you, miss," said Mr. Quorn. "I should feel satisfied if I could see the doc.u.ment."

Violet left the room with a furtive smile on her lips, and in a minute or so returned with the letter, which she handed to Mr. Quorn. He drew from his coat-pocket a spectacle-case, and took from it a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. He breathed on these, and polished them with his handkerchief, and then read the letter.

"Richardson & Bowdler," he said, tapping the paper with one bejewelled, dirty finger, "Acre Building, Cheapside. No objection, I presoom, to my calling on these gentlemen and ascertaining if this doc.u.ment is genuine?"

"Sir," said the count, stiffly, "the whole matter is open to your investigation. You will take any course which seems to you to be justified by your own interests."

"That's above-board," said Mr. Quorn, calmly pocketing the letter and returning his gla.s.ses to their case. "I'll take a run down to these folks at once, and things being satisfactory there, I'll be at Captain Fyffe's service any minute. If you've nothing better to do this afternoon, captain, I'll run you down to Blackwall and show you what is to be seen."

It was arranged that he should call for me between three and four o'clock, and on that understanding he took his leave, retiring with many flourishes and an a.s.surance, specially addressed to Violet, that he was flush on the cause of freedom anywhere and everywhere, the hull globe over, and dead against them blasted Austrians anyhow.

"You must remember, my child," said the count, when we three were left alone, "that you are spending a great sum of money in this enterprise, that it may all be wasted, and that even if by your help The Cause should win you can never hope to see one pound of your money back again."

Violet had seated herself beside him at Mr. Quorn's departure, and now, when he began to speak, she slid one arm about his neck and nestled closely to him, with her ripe young cheek touching his grizzled and lined old face.

"I have thought of all that, father," she answered. "I shouldn't care much in any case what became of the money, for I shall have plenty left.

But if it were the last penny, you and Italy would be welcome to it."

"I know that, my dearest," the count answered; "but all the same I could wish it were my own. You have not yet heard to-day's news?"

"No," she said, drawing a little away from him, in order that she might look into his face. "What is it?"

"France is up!" he responded. "Louis Philippe has flown away, and is either on the road here or here already."

"And that means?" she said.

"'Instant action," returned the count. "Action without one hour's unnecessary delay."

"Tell me," she said, "exactly what it means."

"We have called a meeting for to-night," said the count, "and until that is held I can tell you nothing final. But you have a right to know my own design. We can really do nothing practical until we are armed. But I shall propose to quit England to-morrow. I shall leave Captain Fyffe to the negotiations with Quorn, and shall arrange for communications across the frontier, which will enable me to judge of the best place and the wisest hour for an attack. I shall go alone, because I wish to excite as little notice as possible."

"You must not go alone," she said, and made a movement towards him with her hands half extended. It was just such a movement as you will see a mother make towards a child that has not quite learned to walk and is in danger of falling. I could see the maternal instinct beaming in her face. The beautiful girl beside this grizzled and prematurely aged man was motherly all over, and it was a lovely and a touching thing to see.

The count saw her meaning in a second, and drew back from her with a melancholy and affectionate smile, holding out both hands against her.

"I must go alone," he said.

"No, no!" cried Violet, taking both his outstretched hands in hers, and bending over him with a look of infinite protection. "My poor dear, have you not suffered enough, and run dangers enough already? I could not bear to be away from you." He was about to speak, but she closed his lips gently with the palm of her hand. "I have not been your daughter long," she said, with a little catch in her voice which took me at the throat and made my heart ache with tenderness and pity for her. "I can give you up, dear, when the time comes, but not an hour before."

"Should I not be happy, Fyffe?" asked the count, turning to me with tears in his eyes. "No, no, dearest, you will wait in England. I shall leave you in safety, for I will take nothing with me--no, not a thought, if I can help it, which would make me a coward for Italy."

"I can give you up when the time comes," she repeated, simply, "but not now. I will not ask you to take me into any danger. I don't think," she went on, striving to make something of a jest of it, and to hide the deeper feeling which controlled her so strongly--"I don't think that I am fond of danger or that I should like it at all; but there is no real reason why I should not be with you just at first."

"Aye, yes," cried the count, "there is every reason. I do not know where I may have to go. I do not know how I am to live--to travel--with what a.s.sociates I must combine. My dear child, you must know the truth; my love must venture to speak it. You would be a drag upon every step, and with you I should not dare to face a single peril. I must go alone; I know the hards.h.i.+p, but that is the task of women. They wait at home and suffer, while the man goes out to enjoy adventure and excitement. It was your mother's fortune, my child, and you inherit it. She was all English, and yet she endured it for my sake. You are at least half of Italy, and Italy has need of both of us. If Italy needs my life, she is welcome to it. If she had need of yours, I would say not a word to hold you back. But your place is at home. Is it not so, Fyffe?"

I was a selfish advocate enough, but he had reason on his side, and I should have been blind indeed not to have seen it.

"It will be wiser--wiser far," I urged, "to stay at home. To speak plainly, you could not fail, in any sudden emergency, to hamper your father's steps. He would be nervous about you, and anxious for your safety."

"But there is no need for that," she cried, with a tender impatience. "I am not afraid. If I were a man you should not talk to me so."

"No," said the count, rising and folding his arms about her. "If you were a man, my dearest, you should have your way."

"Oh," she said, with a downward gesture of her clinched hands, "I hate these thoughts about women. Why should we not have courage? Why shouldn't we share danger with those we care about? I am not afraid of danger. But I could keep you away from it when there was no reason for it."

"Violet," said her father, gently, "I am not inclined to be rash; not now. I have had twenty years of warning, remember."

"Remember, poor dear!" she cried, with both arms round his neck and her face hidden on his shoulder, "I have never forgotten for a moment since I knew that you were alive. But don't let me be so useless. Let me do something. Let me be near you. Don't leave me behind."

"You do much already," said the count, soothing her as he spoke with one loving hand upon her flushed and tear-stained cheek. "You surrender your father and your plighted husband, and a great slice of your fortune. Ah, dearest, you do enough!"

"I do nothing," she declared. "Oh, I wish I were a man!"

"So do not I," said the count. "I should quarrel with any wish the fulfilment of which robbed me of my daughter."

She moved away from him gently, and dried her eyes. Her father watched her solicitously, and by-and-by she walked to the window of the room and said, in a tone of commonplace: "You cannot prevent me from following you."

"I can forbid it," he said, in a tone of pain.

"And I can follow all the same," she answered. He looked at her with a glance in which I read both surprise and grief, and for a minute he found no answer. When she moved to look at him he had turned away, and did not see how timid and beseeching her eyes were, for all the rebellion in her words.

"My child," he said, "I am at a grave disadvantage. It pleased G.o.d to part us, and to deny us even the knowledge of each other's existence. I am still a stranger."

"No, no, no!" she cried. She turned and ran to him, and it was plain that an appeal couched in such terms was more than she could bear. "You are my father," she sobbed, "my dear, dear father! All the dearer," she went on, in words made half inarticulate by her tears, and all the more expressive and affecting--"all the dearer because we never knew each other through all those dreadful years! I love you, dear, and I am not undutiful, and I will do whatever you ask me; but I want to be with you, I want to be with you. I have had you for such a little time. I want you--I want you always!"

"You must spare me to Italy," said her father, kissing her hands and stroking them within his own.

"Italy! What would Italy be to me if you were not a part of it?" The Southern blood broke out there plain to see, and in her flas.h.i.+ng eyes and vivid face and the free gesture with which she spoke she was Italian all over. "Do you think a girl can love a country or a name as she loves her father? Do you think she cares about your houses and intrigues, your Piedmonts and Savoys, your Cavours and Metterniches? I would give everything I have to Italy, but I would give it all to Austria just as soon if you were on her side!"

The count stood as if stricken dumb. I do not believe that this human natural aspect of the case had ever occurred to him as being within the broadest limits of possibility. Italy had come to mean everything in the world to him. The word meant love, revenge, ambition, the very daily bread and water of his heart and soul. The fate of Italy overrode, in his mind, every personal consideration--not only for himself, but, unconsciously, for every living creature. It was natural that it should be so. It would have been strange, perhaps, had it been otherwise. I could see that his daughter's outburst sounded in his ears almost like a blasphemy. He stood wonder-struck and silent.

"If you," he said at last, with a face as white as a ghost's, and raising a shaking hand towards her--"if you, my daughter, the living remembrance of my wife--if she herself were back here from her repose in heaven--if all that ever were or could be dear to me stood on the one side, and my country's freedom on the other, I would lose you all--I would sacrifice you with my own hand for that great cause as willingly as I would sacrifice myself."

"Of course you would," she answered, with an amazement almost equal to his own. "What was the use of proclaiming a truth so self-evident as that? You are a man and a patriot, and you love your country"--her voice rang and her bosom heaved--"and you have given all the best years of your life in suffering for her; and that is why I love and honor you.

But that is what a man could never understand. You love your cause, and we women love you for loving it; and love it because you love it, and we would die for it just as soon as you would. Oh, you heroic, n.o.ble, beautiful--goose!" She rushed at him, and kissed him with a pa.s.sionate impetuosity. "And you think it's all Italy. It isn't Italy; it's you!

You're my father, and you're a hero, and a--and a--martyr, and the n.o.blest man that ever lived; and I love you, and I'm proud of you, and--Italy! You're my Italy, dear!"

I know that I have not even recorded the words she spoke, well as I fancied I remembered them. But there is no recording the manner, all fire and pa.s.sion and melting tenderness; and such a sudden sense of fun and affection in the very middle of it all that I was within an ace of crying at it. The count did cry, without disguise, and so did she, and I did what I could to look as if I were not in the least moved. But when her outburst was over, and we had all settled down again, there was no further hint of disobedience. Violet sat down submissively on a little footstool at the count's side, holding his hand and resting her head against his knee while he detailed his plans, so far as they were ripe, or speculated beyond them, looking into the possibilities of the future.

In a while, according to arrangement, Mr. Quorn returned, and this broke up our conclave. I knew already the hour and place appointed for that night, and the count and I agreed to meet there. 12

CHAPTER XIII

We met in a room in Soho, over an Italian restaurateur's. The place was dimly lit with lamps and a brace of tall candles, and down the centre of the room ran a long, unclothed table, with chairs ranged at either side of it. The men who formed our council were of every social grade, and in the crowd which hung about the room at the moment of my entrance there were two or three who would have pa.s.sed social muster anywhere, and two or three who were s.h.a.ggy, unkempt, and ragged enough to have been taken for beggars. One or two wore the short round jacket which is the trade-mark of the Italian waiter, and one, a diamond merchant from Hatton Garden, carried so much of his own stock in trade in open evidence about him that he would have been a fortune to a dozen of the poorer brethren. But whether they were prince or peasant, lean tutor, fat padrone, coa.r.s.e stockbroker, or polished n.o.ble, they were all at one in patriotism, and there was not a man there who had not proved himself up to the hilt, and who was not given, body and soul, to The Cause.

In the darkest corner of the room stood an old grand pianoforte, the top propped open, and the keyboard exposed as if it had been but recently employed. A chair with a ragged cus.h.i.+on on top of it was pushed a little back, and a sheet of music drooped from the stand towards the keys. My entrance had excited no regard, and I took my place in this dim corner to look about me. The count had not yet arrived, and, indeed, I was some five minutes before the appointed hour; but as I stood watching, Brunow came in and shook hands with at least a score of the men a.s.sembled. The light was anything but clear, and I could not be quite certain of his aspect; but to me he wore a troubled and hara.s.sed look, and I thought I had never seen him so pale and wan. He talked loudly and excitedly; and little as I understood the language with which he was so familiar, I made out enough to tell me that he was exulting in the news that day had brought us, and was prophesying success for the Italian cause. For people who did not know him, he had an extraordinary power of exciting enthusiasm, and before he had been three minutes in the place everybody was listening to him; and once or twice as he spoke there was a murmur of applause, now and then a laugh, and once a burst of cheering. Just as this broke out he caught sight of me standing in the dimness of the corner by the old piano, and peered at me as if uncertain of my ident.i.ty. When he recognized me he turned away and spoke no more, and I thought it was anger at me which flushed his face at first and then made it paler than ever. I was sorry for Brunow, and, little as I valued him, I was grieved that he should nurse his groundless grudge against me; but there was nothing to be done at present.