CHAPTER XLVI. “THE BAG NO. 18”
Almost overlooking the terraced garden where Damer and Tony dined, and where they sat smoking till a late hour of the night, stood a large palace, whose vast proportions and spacious entrance, as well as an emblazoned shield over the door, proclaimed it to belong to the Government. It was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and here, now, in a room projecting over the street beneath, and supported on arches, sat the Minister himself, with our two acquaintances, Mait-land and Caffarelli.
Maitland was still an invalid, and rested on a sofa, but he had recovered much of his former looks and manner, though he was dressed with less care than was his wont.
The Minister – a very tall thin man, stooped in the shoulders, and with a quantity of almost white gray hair streaming on his neck and shoulders – walked continually up and down the room, commenting and questioning at times, as Maitland read forth from a mass of documents which littered the table, and with which Caffarelli supplied him, breaking the seals and tearing open the envelopes before he gave them to his hand.
Though Maitland read with ease, there was yet that half-hesitation in the choice of a word, as he went on, that showed he was translating; and indeed once or twice the Prince-Minister stopped to ask if he had rightly imparted all the intended force to a particular expression.
A white canvas bag, marked “F. O., No. 18,” lay on the table; and it was of that same bag and its possible fortunes two others, not fully one hundred yards off, were then talking: so is it that in life we are often so near to, and so remote from, the inanimate object around which our thoughts and hopes, and sometimes our very destinies, revolve.
“I am afraid,” said the Prince, at last, “that we have got nothing here but the formal despatches, of which Ludolf has sent us copies already. Are there no ‘Private and Confidential’?”
“Yes, here is one for Sir Joseph Trevor himself,” said Caffarelli, handing a square-shaped letter to Maitland. Maitland glanced hurriedly over it, and muttered: “London gossip, Craddock’s divorce case, the partridge-shooting, – ah, here it is! ‘I suppose you are right about the expedition, but say nothing of it in the despatches. We shall be called on one of these days for a blue-book, and very blue we should look, if it were seen that amidst our wise counsels to Caraffa we were secretly aware of what G. was preparing.’”
“It must be ‘C. was preparing,’” broke in Caraffa; “it means Cavour.”
“No; he speaks of Garibaldi,” said Maitland.
“Garibaldi!” cried Caraffa, laughing. “And are there still gobemouches in England who believe in the Filibuster?”
“I believe in him, for one,” said Maitland, fiercely, for the phrase irritated him; “and I say, too, that such a Filibuster on our side would be worth thirty thousand of those great hulking grenadiers you passed in review this morning.”
“Don’t tell the King so when you wait on him to-morrow, that’s all!” said the Minister, with a sneering smile.
“Read on,” broke in Caffarelli, who was not at all sure what the discussion might lead to.
“Perhaps, too, you would class Count Cavour amongst these gobemouches,” said Maitland, angrily; “for he is also a believer in Garibaldi.”
“We can resume this conversation at Caserta to-morrow before his Majesty,” said Caraffa, with the same mocking smile; “pray, now, let me hear the remainder of that despatch.”
“‘It is not easy to say,’” read he aloud from the letter, “‘what France intends or wishes. C. says – ‘”
“Who is C.?” asked Caraffa, hastily.
“C. means Cowley, probably, – ‘that the Emperor would not willingly see Piedmontese troops at Naples; nor is he prepared to witness a new map of the Peninsula. We, of course, will do nothing either way – ‘”
“Read that again,” broke in Caraffa.
“‘We, of course, will do nothing either way; but that resolve is not to prevent your tendering counsel with a high hand, all the more since the events which the next few months will develop will all of them seem of our provoking, and part and parcel of a matured and long meditated policy.’”
“Bentssimo!” cried the minister, rubbing his hands in delight. “If we reform, it is the Whigs have reformed us. If we fall, it is the Whigs have crushed us.”
“‘Caraffa, we are told,’” continued Maitland, “‘sees the danger, but is outvoted by the Queen-Dowager’s party in the Cabinet, – not to say that, from his great intimacy with Pietri, many think him more of a Muratist than a Bourbon.’”
“Per Bacco! when your countryman tries to be acute, there is nothing too hazardous for his imagination; so, then, I am a French spy!”
“‘What you say of the army,’” read on Maitland, “‘is confirmed by our other reports. Very few of the line regiments will be faithful to the monarchy, and even some of the artillery will go over. As to the fleet, Martin tells me they have not three seaworthy ships in the fifty-seven they reckon, nor six captains who would undertake a longer voyage than Palermo. Their only three-decker was afraid to return a salute to the “Pasha,” lest her old thirty-two-pounders should explode; and this is pretty much the case with the monarchy, – the first shock must shake it, even though it only come of blank cartridge.
“‘While events are preparing, renew all your remonstrances; press upon Caraffa the number of untried prisoners, and the horrid condition of the prisons. Ask, of course in a friendly way, when are these abuses to cease? Say that great hopes of amelioration – speak generally – were conceived here on the accession of the new King, and throw in our regrets that the liberty of the press with us will occasionally lead to strictures whose severities we deplore, without being able to arraign their justice; and lastly, declare our readiness to meet any commercial exchanges that might promise mutual advantage. This will suggest the belief that we are not in any way cognizant of Cavour’s projects. In fact, I will know nothing of them, and hold myself prepared, if questioned in the House, to have had no other information than is supplied by the newspapers. Who is Maitland? None of the Maitlands here can tell me.’” This sentence he read out ere he knew it, and almost crushed the paper when he had finished in his passion.
“Go on,” said Caraffa, as the other ceased to read aloud, while his eyes ran over the lines, – “go on.”
“It is of no moment, or, at least, its interest is purely personal. His Lordship recommends that I should be bought over, but still left in intimate relations with your Excellency.”
“And I see no possible objection to the plan.”
“Don’t you, sir?” cried Maitland, fiercely; “then I do. Some little honor is certainly needed to leaven the rottenness that reeks around us.”
“Caro Signor Conte,” said the Prince, in an insinuating voice, but of which insincerity was the strong characteristic, “do not be angry with my Ultramontane morality. I was not reared on the virtuous benches of a British Parliament; but if there is anything more in that letter, let me hear it.”
“There is only a warning not to see the Count of Syracuse, nor any of his party, who are evidently waiting to see which horse is to win. Ah, and here is a word for your address, Carlo! ‘If Caffarelli be the man we saw last season here, I should say, Do not make advances to him; he is a ruined gambler, and trusted by no party. Lady C – believes in him, but none else!’”
This last paragraph set them all a-laughing, nor did any seem to enjoy it more than Caffarelli himself.
“One thing is clear,” said Caraffa, at last, – “England wishes us every imaginable calamity, but is not going to charge herself with any part of the cost of our ruin. France has only so much of good-will towards us as is inspired by her dislike of Piedmont, and she will wait and watch events. Now, if Bosco be only true to his word, and can give us a ‘good account’ of his treatment of Garibaldi, I think all will go well.”
“When was Garibaldi to set out?” asked Caffarelli.
“Brizzi, but he is seldom correct, said the 18th.”
“That Irish fellow of ours, Maitland, is positive it will be by the 13th at latest. By the way, when I asked him how I could reward this last piece of service he rendered us in securing these despatches, his reply was, ‘I want the cordon of St. Januarius.’ I, of course, remonstrated, and explained that there were certain requisites as to birth and family, certain guarantees as to nobility of blood, certain requirements of fortune. He stopped me abruptly, and said, ‘I can satisfy them all; and if there be any delay in according my demand, I shall make it in person to his Majesty.’”
“Well,” cried Caffarelli, – “well, and what followed?”
“I yielded,” said the Prince, with one of his peculiar smiles. “We are in such a perilous predicament that we can’t afford the enmity of such a consummate rascal; and then, who knows but he may be the last knight of the order!” In the deep depression of the last words was apparent their true sincerity, but he rallied hastily, and said, “I have sent the fellow to Bosco with despatches, and said that he may be usefully employed as a spy, for he is hand-and-glove with all the Garibaldians. Surely he must have uncommon good luck if he escapes a bullet from one side or the other.”
“He told me yesterday,” said Caffarelli, “that he would not leave Naples till his Majesty passed the Irish Legion in review, and addressed them some words of loyal compliment.”
“Why did n’t he tell you,” said the Prince, sarcastically, “that seventy of the scoundrels have taken service with Garibaldi, some hundreds have gone to the hills as brigands, and Castel d’Ovo has got the remainder; and it takes fifteen hundred foot and a brigade of artillery to watch them?”
“Did you hear this, Maitland?” cried Caffarelli; “do you hear what his Excellency says of your pleasant countrymen?”
Maitland looked up from a letter that he was deeply engaged in, and so blank and vacant was his stare that Caffarelli repeated what the Minister had just said. “I don’t think you are minding what I say. Have you heard me, Maitland?”
“Yes; no – that is, my thoughts were on something that I was reading here.”
“Is it of interest to us?” asked Caraffa.
“None whatever. It was a private letter which got into my hands open, and I had read some lines before I was well aware. It has no bearing on politics, however;” and, crushing up the note, he placed it in his pocket, and then, as if recalling his mind to the affairs before him, said: “The King himself must go to Sicily. It is no time to palter. The personal daring of Victor Emmanuel is the bone and sinew of the Piedmontese movement. Let us show the North that the South is her equal in everything.”
“I should rather that it was from you the advice came than from me,” said Caraffa, with a grin. “I am not in the position to proffer it.”
“If I were Prince Caraffa, I should do so, assuredly.”
“You would not, Maitland,” said the other, calmly. “You would not, and for this simple reason, that you would see that, even if accepted, the counsel would be fruitless. If it were to the Queen, indeed – ”
“Yes, per Bacco!” broke in Caffarelli, “there is not a gentleman in the kingdom would not spring into the saddle at such a call.”
“Then why not unfold this standard?” asked Maitland. “Why not make one effort to make the monarchy popular?”
“Don’t you know enough of Naples,” said Caraffa, “to know that the cause of the noble can never be the cause of the people; and that to throw the throne for defence on the men of birth is to lose the ‘men of the street’?”
He paused, and with an expression of intense hate on his face, and a hissing passionate tone in his voice, continued, “It required all the consummate skill of that great man, Count Cavour, to weld the two classes together, and even he could not elevate the populace; so that nothing was left to him but to degrade the noble.”
“I think, meanwhile, we are losing precious time,” said Maitland, as he took up his hat “Bosco should be reinforced. The squadron, too, should be strengthened to meet the Sardinian fleet; for we have sure intelligence that they mean to cover Garibaldi’s landing; Persano avows it.”
“All the better if they do,” said Caraffa. “The same act which would proclaim their own treachery would deliver into our hands this hare-brained adventurer.”
“Your Excellency may have him longer in your hands than you care for,” said Maitland, with a saucy smile. The Prince bowed a cold acknowledgment of the speech, and suffered them to retire without a word.
“It is fated, I believe,” said Caffarelli, as they gained the street, “that the Prince and you are never to separate without anger; and you are wrong, Maitland. There is no man stands so high in the King’s favor.”
“What care I for that, Carlo mio? the whole thing has ceased to interest me. I joined the cause without any love for it; the more nearly I saw its working, the more I despised myself for acting with such associates; and if I hold to it now, it is because it is so certain to fail. Ay, my friend, it is another Bourbon bowled over. The age had got sick of vested interests, and wanted to show what abuses they were; but you and I are bound to stand fast; we cannot rescue the victim, but we must follow the hearse.”
“How low and depressed you are to-night! What has come over you?”
“I have had a heavy blow, mio Carlo. One of those papers whose envelopes you broke and handed to me was a private letter. It was from Alice Trafford to her brother; and the sight of my own name in it tempted me to see what she said of me. My curiosity has paid its price.” He paused for some minutes, and then continued: “She wrote to refuse the villa I had offered her, – to refuse it peremptorily. She added: ‘The story of your friend’s duel is more public than you seem to know. It appeared in the “Patrie” three weeks ago, and was partly extracted by “Galignani.” The provocation given was an open declaration that Mr. Maitland was no Maitland at all, but the illegitimate son of a well-known actress, called Brancaleone, the father unknown. This outrage led to a meeting, and the consequences you know of. The whole story has this much of authenticity, that it was given to the world with the name of the other principal, who signs himself Milo M’Caskey, Lieut. – Col. in the service of Naples, Count, and Commander of various orders.’ She adds,” continued Maitland, in a shaken voice, and an effort, but yet a poor one, to smile, – “she adds: ‘I own I am sorry for him. All his great qualities and cultivation seemed to suit and dignify station; but now that I know his condition to have been a mere assumption, the man himself and his talents are only a mockery, – only a mockery!’ Hard words these, Carlo, very hard words!
“And then she says: ‘If I had only known him as a passing acquaintance, and thought of him with the same indifference one bestows on such, – perhaps I would not now insist so peremptorily as I do on our ceasing to know him; but I will own to you, Mark, that he did interest me greatly. He had, or seemed to have,’ – this, that, and t’ other,” said he, with an ill-tempered haste, and went on. “‘But now, as he stands before me, with a borrowed name and a mock rank – ’ There is half a page more of the same trash; for this gentle lady is a mistress of fierce words, and not over-merciful, and she ends thus: ‘I think, if you are adroit, you can show him, in declining his proffered civility, that we had strong reasons for our refusal, and that it would be unpleasant to renew our former acquaintance.’ In fact, Carlo, she means to cut me. This woman, whose hand I had held in mine while I declared my love, and who, while she listened to me, showed no touch of displeasure, affects now to resent the accident of my birth, and treat me as an impostor! I am half sorry that letter has not reached its destination; ay, and, strange as you will think it, I am more than half tempted to write and tell her that I have read it The story of the stolen despatch will soon be a newspaper scandal, and it would impart marvellous interest to her reading it when she heard that her own ‘private and confidential’ was captured in the same net.”
“You could not own to such an act, Maitland.”
“No. If it should not lead to something further; but I do yearn to repay her. She is a haughty adversary, and well worth a vengeance.”
“What becomes of your fine maxim, ‘Never quarrel with a woman,’ Maitland?”
“When I uttered it, I had never loved one,” muttered he; and they walked on now in silence.
Almost within earshot – so close, indeed, that had they not been conversing in Italian, some of their words must have been overheard by those behind – walked two other friends, Darner and Tony, in close confab.
“I most telegraph F. O,” said Skeffy, “that bag is missing, and that Messenger Butler has gone home to make his report Do you hear me?”
A grunt was the reply.
“I ‘ll give you a letter to Howard Pendleton, and he ‘ll tell what is the best thing to be done.”
“I suspect I know it already,” muttered Tony.
“If you could only persuade my Lord to listen to you, and tell him the story as you told it to me, he ‘d be more than a Secretary of State if he could stand it.”
“I have no great desire to be laughed at, Skeffy.”
“Not if it got you out of a serious scrape, – a scrape that may cost you your appointment?”
“Not even at that price.”
“I can’t understand that; it is quite beyond me. They might put me into ‘Joe Miller’ to-morrow, if they ‘d only gazette me Secretary of Embassy the day after. But here’s the hotel; a good sleep will set you all right; and let me see you at breakfast as jolly as you used to be.”
CHAPTER XLVII. ADRIFT
The dawn was scarcely breaking as Tony Butler awoke and set off to visit the ships in the port whose flags proclaimed them English. There were full thirty, of various sizes and rigs; but though many were deficient in hands, no skipper seemed disposed to accept a young fellow who, if he was stalwart and well grown, so palpably pertained to a class to which hard work and coarse usage were strangers.
“You ain’t anything of a cook, are you?” asked one of the very few who did not reject his demand at once.
“No,” said he, smiling.
“Them hands of yours might do something in the caboose, but they ain’t much like reefing and clewing topsails. Won’t suit me.” And, thus discouraged, he went on from one craft to the other, surprised and mortified to discover that one of the resources he had often pictured to his mind in the hours of despondency was just as remote, just as much above him, as any of the various callings his friends had set before him.
“Not able to be even a sailor! Not fit to serve before the mast! Well, perhaps I can carry a musket; but for that I must return to England.”
He fell to thinking of this new scheme, but without any of that hope that had so often colored his projects. He owed the service a grudge. His father had not been fairly treated in it So, at least, from his very childhood, had his mother taught him to believe, and, in consequence, vehemently opposed all his plans to obtain a commission. Hard necessity, however, left no room for mere scruples; something he must do, and that something was narrowed to the one single career of a soldier.
He was practical enough in a certain sense, and he soon resolved on his line of action; he would reserve just so much as would carry him back to England, and remit the remainder of what he had to his mother.
This would amount to nigh eighty pounds, – a very considerable sum to one whose life was as inexpensive as hers. The real difficulty was how to reconcile her to the thought of his fallen condition, and the hardships she would inevitably associate in her mind with his future life. “Ain’t I lucky,” cried he in his bitterness, and trying to make it seem like a consolation, – “ain’t I lucky, that, except my poor dear mother, I have not one other in the whole world to care what comes to me, – none other to console, none other before whom I need plead or excuse myself! My failure or my disgrace are not to spread a widecast sorrow. They will only darken one fireside, and one figure in the corner of it.”
His heart was full of Alice all the while, but he was too proud to utter her name even to himself. To have made a resolve, however, seemed to rally his courage again; and when the boatman asked him where he should go next, he was so far away in his thoughts that he had some difficulty to remember what he had been actually engaged in.
“Whereto?”
“Well, I can’t well tell you,” said he, laughing. “Isn’t that schooner English, – that one getting underway yonder? Shove me aboard of her.”
“She’s outward bound, sir.”
“No matter, if they ‘ll agree to take me,” muttered he to himself.
The craft was “hauling short” on the anchor as Tony came alongside and learned that she was about to sail for Leghorn, having failed in obtaining a freight at Naples; and as by an accident one of the crew had been left on shore, the skipper was too willing to take Tony so far, though looking, as he remarked, far more like a swell landsman than an ordinary seaman.
Once outside the bay, and bowling along with a smart breeze and a calm sea, the rushing water making pleasant music at the bow, while the helm left a long white track some feet down beneath the surface, Tony felt, what so many others have felt, the glorious elation of being at sea. How many a care “blue water” can assuage, how many a sorrow is made bearable by the fresh breeze that strains the cordage, and the laughing waves we cleave through so fast!
A few very eventful days, in which Tony’s life passed less like reality than a mere dream, brought them to Leghorn; and the skipper, who had taken a sort of rough liking to the “Swell,” as he still called him, offered to take him on to Liverpool, if he were willing to enter himself regularly on the ship’s books as one of the crew.
“I am quite ready,” said Tony, who thought by the time the brief voyage was completed he should have picked up enough of the practice and the look of a sailor to obtain another employment easily.
Accompanied by the skipper, he soon found himself in the consul’s office, crowded with sailors and other maritime folk, busily engaged in preferring complaints or making excuses, or as eagerly asking for relief against this or that exaction on the part of the foreign government.
The consul sat smoking his cigar with a friend at a window, little heeding the turmoil around, but leaving the charge of the various difficulties to his clerks, who only referred to him on some special occasions.
“Here’s a man, sir,” cried one of the clerks, “who wishes to be entered in the ship’s books under an assumed name. I have told him it can’t be done.”
“Why does he ask it? Is he a runaway convict?” asked the consul.
“Not exactly,” said Tony, laughing; “but as I have not been brought up before the mast, and I have a few relatives who might not like to hear of me in that station – ”
“A scamp, I take,” broke in the consul, “who, having done his worst on shore, takes to the sea for a refuge?”
“Partly right, – partly wrong,” was the dry answer.
“Well, my smart fellow, there ‘s no help for it. You must give your name and your birthplace; and if they should prove false ones, take any consequences that might result.”
“What sort of consequences might these be?” asked Tony, calmly; and the consul, having either spoken without any distinct knowledge attached to his words, or provoked by the pertinacity of the question, half irritably answered: “I ‘ve no time to throw away in discussing casualties; give your name or go your way.”
“Yes, yes,” murmured the skipper. “Who knows anything about you down here? – Just sign the sheet and let’s be moving.”
The sort of good-humored tone and look that went with the words decided Tony, and he took the pen and wrote “Tony Butler, Ireland.”
The consul glanced at the writing, and said, “What part of Ireland? Name a town or a village.”
“I cannot; my father was a soldier, quartered in various places, and I ‘m not sure in what part of the island I was born.”
“Tony Butler means Anthony Butler, I suppose?”
“Tony Butler!” cried the consul’s friend, suddenly starting up, and coming forward; “did you say your name was Tony Butler?”
“Yes; that is my name.”
“And are you from the North of Ireland, – near the Causeway?”
Tony nodded, while a flush of shame at the recognition covered his face.
“And do you know Dr. Stewart, the Presbyterian minister in that neighborhood?”
“I should think so. The Burnside, where he lives, is not above a mile from us.”
“That’s it, – the Burnside, – that’s the name of it. I’m as glad as fifty pounds in my pocket to see you, Mr. Butler,” cried he, grasping Tony’s hand in both his own. “There ‘s not a man from this to England I ‘d as soon have met as yourself. I ‘m Sam M’Grader, Robert M’Grader’s brother. You have n’t forgot him, I hope?”
“That I haven’t,” cried Tony, warmly returning the honest pressure of the other’s hand. “What a stupid dog I have been not to remember that you lived here! and I have a letter for you, too, from your brother!”
“I want no letter of introduction with you, Mr. Butler; come home with me. You ‘re not going to sea this time;” and, taking a pen, he drew a broad line of ink across Tony’s name; and then turning, he whispered a few words in the consul’s ear.
“I hope,” said the consul, “Mr. Butler is not offended at the freedom with which I commented on him.”
“Not in the least,” said Tony, laughing. “I thought at the time, if you knew me you would not have liked to have suggested my having been a runaway convict; and now that you do know me, the shame you feel is more than enough to punish you.”
“What could have induced you to go before the mast, Mr. Butler?” said M’Gruder, as he led Tony away.
“Sheer necessity. I wanted to earn my bread.”
“But you had got something, – some place or other?”
“I was a messenger, but I lost my despatches, and was ashamed to go home and say so.”
“Will you stop with me? Will you be a clerk?” asked the other; and a certain timidity in his voice showed that he was not quite assured as he spoke. “My business is like my brother’s, – we ‘re ‘in rags.’”.
“And so should I be in a few days,” laughed out Tony, “if I had n’t met you. I ‘ll be your clerk, with a heart and a half, – that is, if I be capable; only don’t give me anything where money enters, and as little writing as possible, and no arithmetic, if you can help it.”
“That will be a strange sort of clerkship,” said M’Gruder, with a smile; “but we ‘ll see what can be done.”