CHAPTER XXIX. A COUNCIL OF STATE
It was a fine mellow evening of the late autumn as two men sat in a large and handsomely furnished chamber opening upon a vast garden. There was something in the dim half-light, the heavily perfumed air, rich with the odor of the orange and the lime, and the stillness, that imparted a sense of solemnity to the scene, where, indeed, few words were interchanged, and each seemed to ponder long after every syllable of the other.
We have no mysteries with our reader, and we hasten to say that one of these personages was the Chevalier Stubber,—confidential minister of the Duke of Massa; the other was our old acquaintance Billy Traynor. If there was some faint resemblance in the fortunes of these two men, who, sprung from the humblest walks of life, had elevated themselves by their talents to a more exalted station, there all likeness between them ended. Each represented, in some of the very strongest characteristics, a nationality totally unlike that of the other: the Saxon, blunt, imperious, and decided; the Celt, subtle, quick-sighted, and suspicious, distrustful of all, save his own skill in a moment of difficulty.
“But you have not told me his real name yet,” said the Chevalier, as he slowly smoked his cigar, and spoke with the half-listlessness of a careless inquirer.
“I know that, sir,” said Billy, cautiously; “I don't see any need of it.”
“Nor your own, either,” remarked the other.
“Nor even that, sir,” responded Billy, calmly.
“It comes to this, then, my good friend,” rejoined Stubber, “that, having got yourself into trouble, and having discovered, by the aid of a countryman, that a little frankness would serve you greatly, you prefer to preserve a mystery that I could easily penetrate if I cared for it, to speaking openly and freely, as a man might with one of his own.”
“We have no mysteries, sir. We have family secrets that don't regard any one but ourselves. My young ward, or pupil, whichever I ought to call him, has, maybe, his own reasons for leading a life of unobtrusive obscurity, and what one may term an umbrageous existence. It's enough for me to know that, to respect it.”
“Come, come, all this is very well if you were at liberty, or if you stood on the soil of your own country; but remember where you are now, and what accusations are hanging over you. I have here beside me very grave charges indeed,—constant and familiar intercourse with leaders of the Carbonari—”
“We don't know one of them,” broke in Billy.
“Correspondence with others beyond the frontier,” continued the Chevalier.
“Nor that either,” interrupted Billy.
“Treasonable placards found by the police in the very hands of the accused; insolent conduct to the authorities when arrested; attempted escape: all these duly certified on oath.”
“Devil may care for that; oaths are as plenty with these blaguards as clasp-knives, and for the same purpose too. Here's what it is, now,” said he, crossing his arms on the table, and staring steadfastly at the other: “we came here to study and work, to perfect ourselves in the art of modellin', with good studies around us; and, more than all, a quiet, secluded little spot, with nothing to distract our attention, or take us out of a mind for daily labor. That we made a mistake, is clear enough. Like everywhere else in this fine country, there's nothing but tyrants on one side, and assassins on the other; and meek and humble as we lived, we could n't escape the thievin' blaguards of spies.”
“Do you know the handwriting of this address?” said the Chevalier, showing a sealed letter directed to Sebastiano Greppi, Sculptore, Carrara.
“Maybe I do, maybe I don't,” was the gruff reply. “Won't you let me finish what I was savin'?”
“This letter was found in the possession of the young prisoner, and is of some consequence,” continued the other, totally inattentive to the question.
“I suppose a letter is always of consequence to him it's meant for,” was the half-sulky reply. “Sure you 're not goin' to break the seal—sure you don't mean to read it!” exclaimed he, almost springing from his seat as he spoke.
“I don't think I'd ask your permission for anything I think fit to do, my worthy fellow,” said the other, sternly; and then, passing across the room, he summoned a gendarme, who waited at the door, to enter.
“Take this man back to the Fortezza,” said he, calmly; and while Billy Traynor slowly followed the guard, the other seated himself leisurely at the table, lighted his candles, and perused the letter. Whether disappointed by the contents, or puzzled by the meaning, he sat long pondering with the document before him.
It was late in the night when a messenger came to say that his Highness desired to see him; and Stubber arose at once, and hastened to the Duke's chamber.
In a room studiously plain and simple in all its furniture, and on a low, uncurtained bed, lay the Prince, half dressed, a variety of books and papers littering the table, and even the floor at his side. Maps, prints, colored drawings,—some representing views of Swiss scenery, others being portraits of opera celebrities,—were mingled with illuminated missals and richly-embossed rosaries; while police reports, petitions, rose-colored billets and bon-bons, made up a mass of confusion wonderfully typical of the illustrious individual himself.
Stubber had scarcely crossed the threshold of the room when he appeared to appreciate the exact frame of his master's mind. It was the very essence of his tact to catch in a moment the ruling impulse which swayed for a time that strange and vacillating nature, and he had but to glance at him to divine what was passing within.
“So then,” broke out the Prince, “here we are actually in the very midst of revolution. Marocchi has been stabbed in the Piazza of Carrara. Is it a thing to laugh at, sir?”
“The wound has only been fatal to the breast of his surtout, your Highness; and so adroitly given, besides, that it does not correspond with the incision in his waistcoat.”
“You distrust everyone and everything, Stubber; and, of course, you attribute all that is going forward to the police.”
“Of course I do, your Highness. They predict events with too much accuracy not to have a hand in their fulfilment. I knew three weeks ago when this outbreak was to occur, who was to be assassinated,—since that is the phrase for Marocchi's mock wound,—who was to be arrested, and the exact nature of the demand the Council would make of your Royal Highness to suppress the troubles.”
“And what was that?” asked the Duke, grasping a paper in his hand as he spoke.
“An Austrian division, with a half-battery of field-artillery, a judge-advocate to try the prisoners, and a provost-marshal to shoot them.”
“And you 'd have me believe that all these disturbances are deliberate plots of a party who desire Austrian influence in the Duchy?” cried the Duke, eagerly. “There may be really something in what you suspect. Here's a letter I have just received from La Sabloukoff,—she 's always keen-sighted; and she thinks that the Court at Vienna is playing out here the game that they have not courage to attempt in Lombardy. What if this Wahnsdorf was a secret agent in the scheme, eh, Stubber?”
Stubber started with well-affected astonishment, and appeared as if astounded at the keen acuteness of the Duke's suggestion.
“Eh!” cried his Highness, in evident delight. “That never occurred to you, Stubber? I'd wager there's not a man in the Duchy could have hit that plot but myself.”
Stubber nodded sententiously, without a word.
“I never liked that fellow,” resumed the Duke. “I always had my suspicion about that half-reckless, wasteful manner he had. I know that I was alone in this opinion, eh, Stubber? It never struck you?”
“Never! your Highness, never!” replied Stubber, frankly.
“I can't show you the Sabloukoff's letter, Stubber, there are certain private details for my own eye alone; but she speaks of a young sculptor at Carrara, a certain—Let me find his name. Ah! here it is, Sebastian Greppi, a young artist of promise, for whom she bespeaks our protection. Can you make him out, and let us see him?”
Stubber bowed in silence.
“I will give him an order for something. There's a pedestal in the flower-garden where the Psyche stood. You remember, I smashed the Psyche, because it reminded me of Camilla Monti. He shall design a figure for that place. I 'd like a youthful Bacchus. I have a clever sketch of one somewhere; and it shall be tinted,—slightly tinted. The Greeks always colored their statues. Strange enough, too; for, do you remark, Stubber, they never represented the iris of the eye, which the Romans invariably did. And yet, if you observe closely, you'll see that the eyelid implies the direction of the eye more accurately than in the Roman heads. I 'm certain you never detected what I 'm speaking of, eh, Stubber?”
Stubber candidly confessed that he had not, and listened patiently while his master descanted critically on the different styles of art, and his own especial tact and skill in discriminating between them.
“You'll look after these police returns, then, Stubber,” said he, at last. “You'll let these people understand that we can suffice for the administration of our own duchy. We neither want advice from Metternich, nor battalions from Radetzky. The laws here are open to every man; and if we have any claim to the gratitude of our people, it rests on our character for justice.”
While he spoke with a degree of earnestness that indicated sincerity, there was something in the expression of his eye—a half-malicious drollery in its twinkle—that made it exceedingly difficult to say whether his words were uttered in honesty of purpose, or in mere mockery and derision. Whether Stubber rightly understood their import is more than we are able to say; but it is very probable that he was, with all his shrewdness, mystified by one whose nature was a puzzle to himself.
“Let Marocchi return to Carrara. Say we have taken the matter into our own hands. Change the brigadier in command of the gendarmerie there. Tell the canonico Baldetti that we look to him and his deacons for true reports of any movement that is plotting in the town. I take no steps with regard to Wahnsdorf for the present, but let him be closely watched. And then, Stubber, send off an estafetta to Pietra Santa for the ortolans, for I think we have earned our breakfast by all this attention to state affairs.” And then, with a laugh whose accents gave not the very faintest clew to its meaning, he lay back on his pillow again.
“And these two prisoners, your Highness, what is to be done with them?”
“Whatever you please, Stubber. Give them the third-class cross of Massa, or a month's imprisonment, at your own good pleasure. Only, no more business,—no papers to sign, no schemes to unravel; and so good night.” And the Chevalier retired at once from a presence which he well knew resented no injury so unmercifully as any invasion of his personal comfort.