Buch lesen: «The Fortunes Of Glencore», Seite 27

“People who live out of the world, or, what comes to the same thing, in a little world of their own, are ever craving after perfectibility, – just as, in time of peace, nations only accept in their armies six-foot grenadiers and gigantic dragoons. Let the pressure of war or emergency arise, however, or, in other words, let there be the real business of life to be done, then the standard is lowered at once, and the battle is sought and won by very inferior agency. Now, show troops and show qualities are very much alike; they are a measure of what would be very charming to arrive at, were it only practicable! Oh that poor Glencore had only learned this lesson, instead of writing nonsense verses at Eton!

“The murky domesticities of England have no correlatives in the sunny enjoyments of Italian life; and John Bull has got a fancy that virtue is only cultivated where there are coal fires, stuff curtains, and a window tax. Why, then, in the name of Doctors’ Commons, does he marry a foreigner?”

Just as Upton had written these words, his servant presented him with a visiting-card.

“Lord Glencore!” exclaimed he, aloud. “When was he here?”

“His Lordship is below stairs now, sir. He said he was sure you’d see him.”

“Of course; show him up at once. Wait a moment; give me that cane, place those cushions for my feet, draw the curtain, and leave the aconite and ether drops near me, – that will do, thank you.”

Some minutes elapsed ere the door was opened; the slow footfall of one ascending the stairs, step by step, was heard, accompanied by the labored respiration of a man breathing heavily; and then Lord Glencore entered, his form worn and emaciated, and his face pale and colorless. With a feeble, uncertain voice, he said, —

“I knew you ‘d see me, Upton, and I would n’t go away!” And with this he sank into a chair and sighed deeply.

“Of course, my dear Glencore, you knew it,” said the other, feelingly, for he was shocked by the wretched spectacle before him; “even were I more seriously indisposed than – ”

“And were you really ill, Upton?” asked Glencore, with a weakly smile.

“Can you ask the question? Have you not seen the evening papers, read the announcement on my door, seen the troops of inquirers in the streets?”

“Yes,” sighed he, wearily, “I have heard and seen all you say; and yet I bethought me of a remark I once heard from the Duke of Orleans: ‘Monsieur Upton is a most active minister when his health permits; and when it does not, he is the most mischievous intriguant in Europe.’”

“He was always straining at an antithesis; he fancied he could talk like St. Simon, and it really spoiled a very pleasant converser.”

“And so you have been very ill?” said Glencore, slowly, and as though he had not heeded the last remark; “so have I also!”

“You seem to me too feeble to be about, Glencore,” said Upton, kindly.

“I am so, if it were of any consequence, – I mean, if my life could interest or benefit any one. My head, however, will bear solitude no longer; I must have some one to talk to. I mean to travel; I will leave this in a day or so.”

“Come along with me, then; my plan is to make for Brussels, but it must not be spoken of, as I want to watch events there before I remove farther from England.”

“So it is all true, then, – you have resigned?” said Glencore.

“Perfectly true.”

“What a strange step to take! I remember, more than twenty years ago, your telling me that you’d rather be Foreign Secretary of England than the monarch of any third-rate Continental kingdom.”

“I thought so then, and, what is more singular, I think so still.”

“And you throw it up at the very moment people are proclaiming your success!”

“You shall hear all my reasons, Glencore, for this resolution, and will, I feel assured, approve of them; but they ‘d only weary you now.”

“Let me know them now, Upton; it is such a relief to me when, even by a momentary interest in anything, I am able to withdraw this poor tired brain from its own distressing thoughts.” He spoke these words not only with strong feeling, but even imparted to them a tone of entreaty, so that Upton could not but comply.

“When I wished for the Secretaryship, my dear Glencore,” said he, “I fancied the office as it used to be in olden times, when one played the great game of diplomacy with kings and ministers for antagonists, and the world at large for spectators; when consummate skill and perfect secrecy were objects of moment, and when grand combinations rewarded one’s labor with all the certainty of a mathematical problem. Every move on the board could be calculated beforehand, no disturbing influences could derange plans that never were divulged till they were accomplished. All that is past and gone; our Constitution, grown every day more and more democratic, rules by the House of Commons. Questions whose treatment demands all the skill of a statesman and all the address of a man of the world come to be discussed in open Parliament; correspondence is called for, despatches and even private notes are produced; and while the State you are opposed to revels in the security of secrecy, your whole game is revealed to the world in the shape of a blue-book.

“Nor is this all: the debaters on these nice and intricate questions, involving the most far-reaching speculation of statesmanship, are men of trade and enterprise, who view every international difficulty only in its relation to their peculiar interests. National greatness, honor, and security are nothing, – the maintenance of that equipoise which preserves peace is nothing, – the nice management which, by the exhibition of courtesy here, or of force there, is nothing compared to alliances that secure us ample supplies of raw material, and abundant markets for manufactures. Diplomacy has come to this!”

“But you must have known all this before you accepted office; you had seen where the course of events led to, and were aware that the House ruled the country.”

“Perhaps I did not recognize the fact to its full extent. Perhaps I fancied I could succeed in modifying the system,” said Upton, cautiously.

“A hopeless undertaking!” said Glencore.

“I’m not quite so certain of that,” said Upton, pausing for a while as he seemed to reflect. When he resumed, it was in a lighter and more flippant tone: “To make short of it, I saw that I could not keep office on these conditions, but I did not choose to go out as a beaten man. For my pride’s sake I desired that my reasons should be reserved for myself alone; for my actual benefit it was necessary that I should have a hold over my colleagues in office. These two conditions were rather difficult to combine, but I accomplished them.

“I had interested the King so much in my views as to what the Foreign Office ought to be that an interchange of letters took place, and his Majesty imparted to me his fullest confidence in disparagement of the present system. This correspondence was a perfect secret to the whole Cabinet; but when it had arrived at a most confidential crisis, I suggested to the King that Cloudeslie should be consulted. I knew well that this would set the match to the train. No sooner did Cloudeslie learn that such a correspondence had been carried on for months without his knowledge, views stated, plans promulgated, and the King’s pleasure taken on questions not one of which should have been broached without his approval and concurrence, than he declared he would not hold the seals of office another hour. The King, well knowing his temper, and aware what a terrific exposure might come of it, sent for me, and asked what was to be done. I immediately suggested my own resignation as a sacrifice to the difficulty and to the wounded feelings of the Duke. Thus did I achieve what I sought for. I imposed a heavy obligation on the King and the Premier, and I have secured secrecy as to my motives, which none will ever betray.

“I only remained for the debate of the other night, for I wanted a little public enthusiasm to mark the fall of the curtain.”

“So that you still hold them as your debtors?” asked Glencore.

“Without doubt, I do; my claim is a heavy one.”

“And what would satisfy it?”

“If my health would stand England,” said Upton, leisurely, “I’d take a peerage; but as this murky atmosphere would suffocate me, and as I don’t care for the latter without the political privileges, I have determined to have the ‘Garter.’”

“The Garter! a blue ribbon!” exclaimed Glencore, as though the insufferable coolness with which the pretension was announced might justify any show of astonishment.

“Yes; I had some thoughts of India, but the journey deters me, – in fact, as I have enough to live on, I ‘d rather devote the remainder of my days to rest, and the care of this shattered constitution.” It is impossible to convey to the reader the tender and affectionate compassion with which Sir Horace seemed to address these last words to himself.

“Do you ever look upon yourself as the luckiest fellow in Europe, Upton?” asked Glencore.

“No,” sighed he; “I occasionally fancy I have been hardly dealt with by fortune. I have only to throw my eyes around me, and see a score of men, richer and more elevated than myself, not one of whom has capacity for even a third-rate task, so that really the self-congratulation you speak of has not occurred to me.”

“But, after all, you have had a most successful career – ”

“Look at the matter this way, Glencore; there are about six – say six men in all Europe – who have a little more common sense than all the rest of the world: I could tell you the names of five of them.” If there was a supreme boastfulness in the speech, the modest delivery of it completely mystified the hearer, and he sat gazing with wonderment at the man before him.

CHAPTER XLV. SOME SAD REVERIES

“Have you any plans, Glencore?” asked Upton, as they posted along towards Dover.

“None,” was the brief reply.

“Nor any destination you desire to reach?”

“Just as little.”

“Such a state as yours, then, I take it, is about the best thing going in life. Every move one makes is attended with so many adverse considerations, – every goal so separated from us by unforeseen difficulties, – that an existence, even without what is called an object, has certain great advantages.”

“I am curious to hear them,” said the other, half cynically.

“For myself,” said Upton, not accepting the challenge, “the brief intervals of comparative happiness I have enjoyed have been in periods when complete repose, almost torpor, has surrounded me, and when the mere existence of the day has engaged my thoughts.”

“What became of memory all this while?”

“Memory!” said Upton, laughing, “I hold my memory in proper subjection. It no more dares obtrude upon me uncalled for than would my valet come into my room till I ring for him. Of the slavery men endure from their own faculties I have no experience.”

“And, of course, no sympathy for them.”

“I will not say that I cannot compassionate sufferings, though I have not felt them.”

“Are you quite sure of that?” asked Glencore, almost sternly; “is not your very pity a kind of contemptuous sentiment towards those who sorrow without reason, – the strong man’s estimate of the weak man’s sufferings? Believe me, there is no true condolence where there is not the same experience of woe!”

“I should be sorry to lay down so narrow a limit to fellow-feeling,” said Upton.

“You told me a few moments back,” said Glencore, “that your memory was your slave. How, then, can you feel for one like me, whose memory is his master? How understand a path that never wanders out of the shadow of the past?”

There was such an accent of sorrow impressed upon these words that Upton did not desire to prolong a discussion so painful; and thus, for the remainder of the way, little was interchanged between them. They crossed the strait by night, and as Upton stole upon deck after dusk, he found Glencore seated near the wheel, gazing intently at the lights on shore, from which they were fast receding.

“I am taking my last look at England, Upton,” said he, affecting a tone of easy indifference.

“You surely mean to go back again one of these days?” said Upton.

“Never, never!” said he, solemnly. “I have made all my arrangements for the future, – every disposition regarding my property; I have neglected nothing, so far as I know, of those claims which, in the shape of relationship, the world has such reverence for; and now I bethink me of myself. I shall have to consult you, however, about this boy,” said he, faltering in the words. “The objection I once entertained to his bearing my name exists no longer; he may call himself Massy, if he will. The chances are,” added he, in a lower and more feeling voice, “that he rejects a name that will only remind him of a wrong!”

“My dear Glencore,” said Upton, with real tenderness, “do I apprehend you aright? Are you at last convinced that you have been unjust? Has the moment come in which your better judgment rises above the evil counsels of prejudice and passion – ”

“Do you mean, am I assured of her innocence?” broke in Glencore, wildly. “Do you imagine, if I were so, that I could withhold my hand from taking a life so infamous and dishonored as mine? The world would have no parallel for such a wretch! Mark me, Upton!” cried he, fiercely, “there is no torture I have yet endured would equal the bare possibility of what you hint at.”

“Good Heavens! Glencore, do not let me suppose that selfishness has so marred and disfigured your nature that this is true. Bethink you of what you say. Would it not be the crowning glory of your life to repair a dreadful wrong, and acknowledge before the world that the fame you had aspersed was without stain or spot?”

“And with what grace should I ask the world to believe me? Is it when expiating the shame of a falsehood that I should call upon men to accept me as truthful? Have I not proclaimed her, from one end of Europe to the other, dishonored? If she be absolved, what becomes of me?”

“This is unworthy of you, Glencore,” said Upton, severely; “nor, if illness and long suffering had not impaired your judgment, had you ever spoken such words. I say once more, that if the day came that you could declare to the world that her fame had no other reproach than the injustice of your own unfounded jealousy, that day would be the best and the proudest of your life.”

“The proud day that published me a calumniator of all that I was most pledged to defend, – the deliberate liar against the obligation of the holiest of all contracts! You forget, Upton, – but I do not forget, – that it was by this very argument you once tried to dissuade me from my act of vengeance. You told me – ay, in words that still ring in my ears – to remember that if by any accident or chance her innocence might be proven, I could never avail myself of the indication without first declaring my own unworthiness to profit by it; that if the Wife stood forth in all the pride of purity, the Husband would be a scoff and a shame throughout the world!”

“When I said so,” said Upton, “it was to turn you from a path that could not but lead to ruin; I endeavored to deter you by an appeal that interested even your selfishness.”

“Your subtlety has outwitted itself, Upton,” said Glencore, with a bitter irony; “it is not the first instance on record where blank cartridge has proved fatal!”

“One thing is perfectly clear,” said Upton, boldly, “the man who shrinks from the repair of a wrong he has done, on the consideration of how it would affect himself and his own interests, shows that he cares more for the outward show of honor than its real and sustaining power.”

“And will you tell me, Upton, that the world’s estimate of a man’s fame is not essential to his self-esteem, or that there yet lived one, who would brave obloquy without, by the force of something within him?”

“This I will tell you,” replied Upton, “that he who balances between the two is scarcely an honest man, and that he who accepts the show for the substance is not a wise one.”

“These are marvellous sentiments to hear from one whose craft has risen to a proverb, and whose address in life is believed to be not his meanest gift.”

“I accept the irony in all good humor; I go farther, Glencore, I stoop to explain. When any one in the great and eventful journey of life seeks to guide himself safely, he has to weigh all the considerations, and calculate all the combinations adverse to him. The straight road is rarely, or never, possible; even if events were, which they are not, easy to read, they must be taken in combination with others, and with their consequences. The path of action becomes necessarily devious and winding, and compromises are called for at every step. It is not in the moment of shipwreck that a man stops to inquire into petty details of the articles he throws into a long-boat; he is bent on saving himself as best he can. He seizes what is next to him, if it suit his purpose. Now, were he to act in this manner in all the quiet security of his life on shore, his conduct would be highly blamable. No emergency would warrant his taking what belonged to another, – no critical moment would drive him to the instinct of self-preservation. Just the same is the interval between action and reflection. Give me time and forethought, and I will employ something better and higher than craft. My subtlety, as you like to call it, is not my best weapon; I only use it in emergency.”

“I read the matter differently,” said Glencore, sulkily; “I could, perhaps, offer another explanation of your practice.”

“Pray let me hear it; we are all in confidence here, and I promise you I will not take badly whatever you say to me.”

Glencore sat silent and motionless.

“Come, shall I say it for you, Glencore? for I think I know what is passing in your mind.”

The other nodded, and he went on, —

“You would tell me, in plain words, that I keep my craft for myself; my high principle for my friends.”

Glencore only smiled, but Upton continued, —

“So, then, I have guessed aright; and the very worst you can allege against this course is, that what I bestow is better than what I retain!”

“One of Solomon’s proverbs may be better than a shilling; but which would a hungry man rather have? I want no word-fencing, Upton; still less do I seek what might sow distrust between us. This much, however, has life taught me: the great trials of this world are like its great maladies. Providence has meant them to be fatal. We call in the doctor in the one case, or the counsellor in the other, out of habit rather than out of hope. Our own consciousness has already whispered that nothing can be of use; but we like to do as our neighbors, and so we take remedies and follow injunctions to the last. The wise man quickly detects by the character of the means how emergent is the case believed to be, and rightly judges that recourse to violent measures implies the presence of great peril. If he be really wise, then he desists at once from what can only torture his few remaining hours. They can be given to better things than the agonies of such agency. To this exact point has my case come, and by the counsels you have given me do I read my danger! Your only remedy is as bad as the malady it is meant to cure! I cannot take it!”

“Accepting your own imagery, I would say,” said Upton, “that you are one who will not submit to an operation of some pain that he might be cured.”

Glencore sat moodily for some moments without speaking; at last he said, —

“I feel as though continual change of place and scene would be a relief to me. Let us rendezvous, therefore, somewhere for the autumn, and meanwhile I ‘ll wander about alone.”

“What direction do you purpose to take?”

“The Schwarzwald and the Hohlenthal, first. I want to revisit a place I knew in happier days. Memory must surely have something besides sorrows to render us. I owned a little cottage there once, near Steig. I fished and read Uhland for a summer long. I wonder if I could resume the same life. I knew the whole village, – the blacksmith, the schoolmaster, the Dorfrichter, – all of them. Good, kind souls they were: how they wept when we parted! Nothing consoled them but my having purchased the cottage, and promised to come back again!”

Upton was glad to accept even this much of interest in the events of life, and drew Glencore on to talk of the days he had passed in this solitary region.

As in the dreariest landscape a ray of sunlight will reveal some beautiful effects, making the eddies of the dark pool to glitter, lighting up the russet moss, and giving to the half-dried lichen a tinge of bright color, so will, occasionally, memory throw over a life of sorrow a gleam of happier meaning. Faces and events, forms and accents, that once found the way to our hearts, come back again, faintly and imperfectly it may be, but with a touch that revives in us what we once were. It is the one sole feature in which self-love becomes amiable, when, looking back on our past, we cherish the thought of a time before the world had made us sceptical and hard-hearted!

Glencore warmed as he told of that tranquil period when poetry gave a color to his life, and the wild conceptions of genius ran like a thread of gold through the whole web of existence. He quoted passages that had struck him for their beauty or their truthfulness; he told how he had tried to allure his own mind to the tone that vibrated in “the magic music of verse,” and how the very attempt had inspired him with gentler thoughts, a softer charity, and a more tender benevolence towards his fellows.

“Tieck is right, Upton, when he says there are two natures in us, distinct and apart: one, the imaginative and ideal; the other, the actual and the sensual. Many shake them together and confound them, making of the incongruous mixture that vile compound of inconsistency where the beautiful and the true are ever warring with the deformed and the false; their lives a long struggle with themselves, a perpetual contest between high hope and base enjoyment. A few keep them apart, retaining, through their worldliness, some hallowed spot in the heart, where ignoble desires and mean aspirations have never dared to come. A fewer still have made the active work of life subordinate to the guiding spirit of purity, adventuring on no road unsanctioned by high and holy thoughts, caring for no ambitions but such as make us nobler and better.

“I once had a thought of such a life; and even the memory of it, like the prayers we have learned in our childhood, has a hallowing influence over after years. If that poor boy, Upton,” and his lips trembled on the words, – “if that poor boy could have been brought up thus humbly! If he had been taught to know no more than an existence of such simplicity called for, what a load of care might it have spared his heart and mine!”

“You have read over those letters I gave you about him?” asked Upton, who eagerly availed himself of the opportunity to approach an almost forbidden theme.

“I have read them over and over,” said Glencore, sadly; “in all the mention of him I read the faults of my own nature, – a stubborn spirit of pride that hardens as much as elevates; a resentful temper, too prone to give way to its own impulses; an over-confidence in himself, too, always ready to revenge its defeats on the world about him. These are his defects, and they are mine. Poor fellow, that he should inherit all that I have of bad, and yet not be heir to the accidents of fortune which make others so lenient to faults!”

If Upton heard these words with much interest, no less was he struck by the fact that Glencore made no inquiry whatever as to the youth’s fate. The last letter of the packet revealed the story of an eventful duel and the boy’s escape from Massa by night, with his subsequent arrest by the police; and yet in the face of incidents like these he continued to speculate on traits of mind and character, nor even adverted to the more closely touching events of his fate. By many an artful hint and ingenious device did Sir Horace try to tempt him to some show of curiosity; but all were fruitless. Glencore would talk freely and willingly of the boy’s disposition and his capacity; he would even speculate on the successes and failures such a temperament might meet with in life; but still he spoke as men might speak of a character in a fiction, ingeniously weighing casualties and discussing chances; never, even by accident, approaching the actual story of his life, or seeming to attach any interest to his destiny.

Upton’s shrewd intelligence quickly told him that this reserve was not accidental; and he deliberated within himself how far it was safe to invade it.

At length he resumed the attempt by adroitly alluding to the spirited resistance the boy had made to his capture, and the consequences one might naturally enough ascribe to a proud and high-hearted youth thus tyrannically punished.

“I have heard something,” said Upton, “of the severities practised at Kuffstein, and they recall the horrible tales of the Inquisition; the terrible contrivances to extort confessions, – expedients that often break down the intellect whose secrets they would discover; so that one actually shudders at the name of a spot so associated with evil.”

Glencore placed his hands over his face, but did not utter a word; and again Upton went on urging, by every device he could think of, some indication that might mean interest, if not anxiety, when suddenly he felt Glencore’s hand grasp his arm with violence.

“No more of this, Upton,” cried he, sternly; “you do not know the torture you are giving me.” There was a long and painful pause between them, at the end of which Glencore spoke, but it was in a voice scarcely above a whisper, and every accent of which trembled with emotion. “You remember one sad and memorable night, Upton, in that old castle in Ireland, – the night when I came to the resolution of this vengeance! I sent for the boy to my room; we were alone there together, face to face. It was such a scene as could brook no witness, nor dare I now recall its details as they occurred. He came in frankly and boldly, as he felt he had a right to do. How he left that room, – cowed, abashed, and degraded, – I have yet before me. Our meeting did not exceed many minutes in duration; neither of us could have endured it longer. Brief as it was, we ratified a compact between us: it was this, – neither was ever to question or inquire after the other, as no tie should unite, no interest should bind us. Had you seen him then, Upton,” cried Glencore, wildly, “the proud disdain with which he listened to my attempts at excuse, the haughty distance with which he seemed to reject every thought of complaint, the stern coldness with which he heard me plan out his future, – you would have said that some curse had fallen upon my heart, or it could never have been dead to traits which proclaimed him to be my own. In that moment it was my lot to be like him who held out his own right hand to be first burned, ere he gave his body to the flames.

“We parted without an embrace; not even a farewell was spoken between us. While I gloried in his pride, had he but yielded ever so little, had one syllable of weakness, one tear escaped him, I had given up my project, reversed all my planned vengeance, and taken him to my heart as my own. But no! He was resolved on proving by his nature that he was of that stern race from which, by a falsehood, I was about to exclude him. It was as though my own blood hurled a proud defiance to me.

“As he walked slowly to the door, his glove fell from his hand. I stealthily caught it up. I wanted to keep it as a memorial of that bitter hour; but he turned hastily around and plucked it from my hand. The action was even a rude one; and with a mocking smile, as though he read my meaning and despised it, he departed.

“You now have heard the last secret of my heart in this sad history. Let us speak of it no more.” And with this, Glencore arose and left the deck.