THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES

Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Indice da Obra Atual Anterior: XIV - She looked at him as one who awakes, the past was a sleep, and her life began Seguinte: XVI - La Peine Fort et Dure

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CAPÍTULO XV

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES

HUBERT, Earl of Cairnsmuir, although a man of dangerous and implacable jealousy when once his suspicions were aroused, was an easier husband than most Benedicks of the modern English school; for he stood on so high a pedestal of pride and cold superiority that he failed to note many daily incidents which passed beneath his eyes, not because he was either naturally insensible or wilfully blind, but because simply – he overlooked them in the exclusive interest with which he watched the continual and remorseless approach of the fate he dreaded. As a man upon the crest of a mountain who perceives his house burning to ruins in the valley below him, and, unable to descend the intervening precipice, stands motionless in silent anguish with his eyes rivetted upon the terrible spectacle, all unmindful of the ravenous beast of prey from the neighbouring woods which is advancing towards him behind with stealthy steps; so my lord of Cairnsmuir, absorbed in the contemplation of a catastrophe he was powerless to hinder, had no eyes for a danger actually at his elbow. A very common phase of human stupidity, and one into which most of us – especially such of us as are of the masculine gender – are prone enough to be betrayed. While Cœur de Lion fights for the Holy Sepulchre, Prince John usurps the kingdom.

And thus it came to pass in those days of which we have the honour to write, that there arose, little by little, a stronger intimacy between Lady Cairnsmuir and her artist protégé, than any ordinary husband would have cared to permit. If my lord himself had forgotten that his wife was beautiful and captivating, or if he chose to believe that those attractions were on the wane, other men – and women too, for that matter – were neither so obliviously nor so discourteously inclined.

My Lady was scarcely past her fourth decade, and the flower of her youth, if its early brilliance were faded, was sweeter yet than many a

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fresher blossom; and indeed, there are persons of undoubted taste and experience who opine that women, like their æsthetic and categoric concomitants – wine and tobacco – are all the better for maturity.

But then, on the other hand, my Lady had never inclined to levity, and malicious tongues, that had wagged unctuously against the reputation of far older and less charming peeresses than she, were invariably respectful and tender in the treatment of conversational wares that bore the name of Dolores of Cairnsmuir. Possibly the sorrowful and romantic interest which attached to her career, had some share in maintaining her sanctity with the gossips, for the story of her unwelcomed birth and subsequent misfortunes had been circulated pretty widely, and had gained her the sympathy of some, and the pity or the reverential awe of others among her acquaintance. Besides this, my Lady had “a way with her,” that acted as a powerful antidote to any inclination the world might have to comment naughtily on her behaviour; slander was nonplussed in her imperial presence, and her dignity of eye and gravity of smile were in themselves a rebuke sufficient to have put scandal’s very self out of countenance. Therefore English society in Rome, did not go beyond the indulgence of a little surprise and wonder at the violent Platonic attachment evidently subsisting between the Countess and the young Italian artist of the Rione Ponte. It might of course, be a mere patronage, a caprice of sentiment, a whimsical display of favouritism on the part of a grande dame towards a friendless tyro, but was it becoming in my Lady to frequent his atelier so continually, to make so many appointments with him, and to invite him so often to lunch and dine chez elle? Platonics were all very well, said society with significance, but they should be taken like all other tonics, in small doses. Otherwise they might prove too invigorating and produce unpleasant results by mounting into the head and disturbing the brain. Ah, there indeed, the chatterers caught at a new clue and took it up eagerly. It was darkly insinuated that if my Lady were eccentric and unaccountable in her conduct at times, such peculiarities were not to be wondered at, considering the unhappy circumstances of her own life, and the terrible insanity under which the

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Baronness, her mother, had so long laboured. In fact, in a short time, it was pretty generally settled by the talkative world, that Lady Cairnsmuir's extreme partiality for Tristan was an evidence of hereditary mental derangement, and while doubtless, he was benefited by her ladyship’s friendship, she was amused and consoled; and if she really intended, as it was whispered, to take him back with her to Paris, there was no design premeditated in such an arrangement beyond that which is entertained by any lonely hypochondriac spinster who carries her pet tortoishell about for company.

Ah, mes belles dames! it is an excellent fine thing to acquire a character for odd behaviour! Eccentricity covereth a multitude of sins, and all things are lawful unto persons of “peculiar idiosyncrasy!”

But the untoward part of this pretty little business concerning Le Rodeur, was a certain fact of a nature particularly embarrassing, to which my Lady’s eyes, keenly observant in matters which involved her favourite, very soon began to open. To be brief, since it is never possible to conceal the true state of the game from bystanders, – Ella Cairnsmuir was in love! Vulgarly and manifestly in love with her mother’s protégé, – in love with a young waif whose very name carried with it a strange flash of theatrical pseudonym, and whose range of “local habitation” was apparently restricted to an exceedingly lofty perch in a second-rate thoroughfare of Rome; a flowerless weed, undistinguished in social botany, the growth of common mud and river-bed, of whose bare existence nobody had been aware until her Ladyship’s silken landing-net dragged his reluctant head above water.

To hang over her mother’s chair, as my Lady sat before the easel in that little fantastic studio overlooking the market-place, and to gaze her fill, not at the painted canvass, but at the handsome, melancholy, unearthlike face of its owner, to watch the variable lights coming and going like fitful cresset lamps across the night of his liquid eyes, to listen with desire that never palled, to the peculiar flexile changes of his utterance, one moment passionate and rapid, with a dainty silver ring and ripple of words only possible in the French language, and the next instant falling

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musically into that lingering long-drawn “Ah––hi” which no description can describe; all these delights were pure elysian to the “daughter of a hundred earls,” trained in the frigid langour of Belgravia and chilled with the dullness and heavy reserve of the North.

But little by little there arose in Lady Ella’s heart a regret and a longing that well-nigh counterbalanced her new-found happiness – a wild regret that she was not beautiful – a fierce desire to assume at least the semblance of the natural gifts she lacked, no matter by what art or device. Never before this had Ella troubled herself on the score of her personal appearance nor cared a straw that her hair was sober brown and her eyes hazel-gray, while other girls wore locks of gold and “smiled with orbs of cerulean light.” Now she began to find a thousand faults in herself, and, wearied her maid with fifty caprices a day; innumerable styles of coiffure were successively adopted and discarded; Rome was ransacked for washes and the effects of colour, and arrangement of drapery became as much a matter of concern in Ella’s dressing-room as in Le Rodeur’s studio.

These are humiliating incidents, but the novelist who desires to depict life accurately, must not be content with a mere drawing-room survey of it, but must boldly follow Corydon into his tabagie, and adore with Phillips, “the cosmetic powers.” No woman is a heroine to her waiting-maid.

Ah no, “Jessie Clarke” is high priestess of the mysterious solemnities of Bona Dea, she knows the secrets of Metamorphosis, and is initiated into all the juggleries and deceits which go to make up the delicate complexion, the luxuriant hair and the brilliant glances of the fair goddess over whose secret rites she presides. She is not to be dazzled by any coruscation of the eyes into which she has dropped bella-donna, nor fascinated by the smile of lips she has pencilled into graceful curves. Nor is she to be touched by my lord’s confidence in his lovely spouse and the tender and entire affection with which her mistress returns his endearments, for she has read sundry imprudent notes preserved more imprudently in a casket upstairs, and to her the lady addressed in them is certainly no Penelope.

But ne quid nimis; we wander.

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It frequently happened that the number of the pleasant little coterie in Tristan’s studio was augmented by the presence of Signor Baldassare, as my Lady designated him when presenting him to her daughter; an old Italian with a grave face and a bald head, whose Christian name did extra duty as deputy for an absent or a forgotten patronymic, and whose pleasant genial voice was peculiarly measured and gentle in its modulations. He might have served the mediaeval professors of his craft as an Abraham or a Moses, and the monkish sculptors of old days would hugely have coveted such a figure and lineaments as his for reproduction in basso relievo or statue, of the person of the chief Apostle.

Lady Ella thought that Baldassare appeared to possess some particular regard for her mother, and before long became convinced that she was not only correct in this conjecture, but that my Lady herself responded to the old man’s interest, and that there existed between them some mutual understanding, which was, no doubt, closely connected with the mystery enshrouding Tristan, whose guardian Baldassare appeared to be. Very often Ella perceived intelligent glances exchanged between the Countess and this strange Italian, and she observed, moreover, that the former invariably paid a marked deference and affectionate respect to the old man, who in his turn seemed to accept her homage as if it were a simple and natural duty that had nothing in it either surprising or undeserved.

The more Ella meditated over the intricacies of my Lady’s intrigue with Le Rodeur, the more she convinced herself that her mother had some object in view yet unattained, and that Baldassare was aware of her design, and prepared to act as her pilot in the contemplated enterprise. But what relation he or his pupil could possibly bear to the Countess of Cairnsmuir, whether the name of the mysterious pilgrim himself was assumed or not, whether he were really so young as her mother supposed, and if he were, what had been these untoward circumstances of his life that had so destroyed the springs of youth in his mind; these were enigmas which Lady Ella strove in vain to solve. Sometimes she inclined to the idea that Le Rodeur must be the original Wandering Jew, beguiling a few years of his weary vagabondage by the

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adoption of the painter’s art, and a French version of his cosmopolitan appelative; sometimes she fancied him a modern edition of “the wondrous Michael Scott,” master of “glamour and gramarie,” and half suspected him of being versed in those potent spells and cabala which Merlin, of world-wide renown, practised at the court of King Arthur, and Maugis, the enchanter, learned at Toledo in the days of Rinaldo of Montalban.

Thus the months of September and October passed, and the warm Italian autumn was far on the wane when an arrangement for Tristan’s removal to Paris as a member of my Lady’s household, was finally completed between Baldassare and the Countess. Ella heard this agreement with a joy that was perfectly undisguised, since indeed, she hardly knew herself, the real significance of an emotion which she now experienced for the first time in her life. When first we break our fast we relish the viands before us with an indiscriminating appetite, it is only after we have tasted several dishes that we care to inquire about the identity of the comestibles which compose them. And thus also with la grande passion – it is not for the first time we love, but for succeeding fancies (which we are told on good authority are always less involuntary,) that we reserve the test of critical examination.

But my Lady’s wits were quicker than her daughter’s, and before November set in, an occurrence took place which, like a sudden roll of thunder, disturbed the midsummer dream of Lady Ella’s imagination, and curdled the sweet mead in the gilded cup of her life to the acrid bitterness of brine.

It was the eve of the day fixed for the departure of the Cairnsmuirs from Rome. Lady Ella, having completed her dinner-toilette and dismissed her maid, stood by the window of her dressing-room, looking out upon the long Via del Babuino, with its rows of lighted shop-fronts, and watching the motley groups of ecclesiastics, pifferari, pedlars, and Roman gamins that passed continually to and fro, their picturesque costumes – for the most part gay-coloured – flashing brightly in the glow of the lamps, while here or there like a weird denizen of another world, glided swiftly a draped and hooded member of the “Confraternità della Morte,”

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hastening on his charitable errand to the unknown dead. It was a strange picture, full of flitting lights, a kaleidoscope of changing forms and colour, unreal in effect as the mise en scène of a melodrama, or that gaudy fantastic show of the elfin daoine shi’ of the North, which a single word or sign had power to dispel in a moment, with all its illusory and glistening charms.

But Lady Ella’s heart was not in her eyes, but in that quaint little atelier upon the Piazza Navona, and though the dreamy theatre-like beauty of the scene impressed her, it served chiefly to heighten the romantic love which absorbed her thoughts, as music and dancing inflame emotion by means of excitement, and titilate the real passions of the soul by enchanting the senses with all the potency of fairy-glamour.

Not less fairylike, nor less unreal in seeming, was the vision that presently broke in upon Ella Cairnsmuir’s reverie, and directed her glance towards the doorway of the dressing-room. For there, her gaze earnestly bent upon her daughter, and her great phantasmagoric eyes doubly brilliant with the reflected light which fell immediately upon them from the opposite window, her tall perfect figure draped in a soft trailing robe of black satin; with diamonds in her ears, and the pallor of a spectre upon her handsome features, stood my Lady, the Countess Dolores. So suddenly and silently she had appeared, and so unusual a look pervaded her white calm face, that Ella instinctively sprang forward and uttered a cry of alarm.

“Mamma!”

That single exclamation, like the famous “Open Sesame!” of Arabian celebrity, dissolved the spell and unlocked my Lady’s lips. She closed the door, and laid her dainty jewelled hand upon Lady Ella’s arm.

“My child, I have come to tell you that it is arranged for us to leave Rome to-morrow at noon. You are quite prepared for the journey, I suppose?”

“Very nearly, mamma. Only a few odd things remain to be packed, and they can be easily collected in the morning.”

Lady Dolores carelessly removed her hand from Ella’s arm to settle a

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slight disarrangement in the folds of matchless Point d’Alençon that covered her bosom, and perhaps to calm beside a little unwonted tumult there.

“Le Rodeur will accompany us, Ella; do you know that?”

“I know it, mamma.”

Ella’s cheek flushed perceptibly, even beneath the artificial tint with which she had sought to engraft some brilliance upon her meagre charms for she had fancied it probable that Tristan might have received an invitation to dine with his patroness that evening.

“Ella, I think it right, as you have now been acquainted with Le Rodeur for two months, and since it is more than possible that you may by and by become very intimate with him, that you should know something concerning his history and the cause of the deep interest I take in him.”

My Lady paused a minute and lifted her gleaming eyes. Her face was pale as the face of a corpse, but her voice had no fear in its clear, steady intonation – no self-pity, no nervous trepidation. She went on again.

“I have chosen to break silence on this matter to-night, my child, because it is the last night we shall pass in Rome. To-morrow we set out with Le Rodeur for another world than this, where you and he must associate upon a new footing and recognise each other in a truer light than that which I have hitherto permitted to you. But perhaps I should not have compelled myself even now to speak openly had I not seen cause to apprehend that it might be perilous for you” – my Lady’s eyes burned upon her daughter’s – “to keep the secret any longer. The horror of a danger I never anticipated, the shock of an accident I never dreaded as possible, obliges me for the sake of your future peace to relate to you the circumstances of Le Rodeur’s parentage and birth. It is time that you should know all I have to tell. Sit down here beside me.”

Without a word Lady Ella obeyed mechanically, like a creature in a dream, but with a sickly numbness at heart, and that peculiar paralization of the brain which causes a reflective action of the mental process, and gives rise to the strange sensation that the definite events of the present

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have occurred in the indefinite past, and are a mere repetition in exact detail of a certain set of circumstances already familiar to the mind.

But my Lady’s voice did not change. There was no emotion in it yet.