‘See,’ said the miller, pointing toward a high peak, ‘where you see the fire yonder there is an encampment of some of them! You can judge now how little these fellows fear being surprised. As Gerald continued to gaze, a second and then a third flame shot up from the summits of other hills farther off, suggesting to the miller that these were certainly signals of some kind or other.
‘There! rely on it, they have work on their hands up yonder to-night, said the miller; and having pointed out his room to Gerald, he arose to retire. ‘It will, maybe, cost many a penance, many a pater, to wipe off what will be done ‘twixt this and daybreak ‘; and with this pious speech he left the room.
CHAPTER XXII. ‘IL PASTORE’
After the first few moments of astonishment which followed Gerald’s awaking to see himself in a strange place, with strange and novel objects around him, his first thought was to return to Orvieto. He pictured to himself all the alarm his absence must have occasioned, and imagined how each in turn would have treated the event. The angry astonishment of the Cardinal, ready to adopt any solution of the mystery that implied intrigue and plot: the haughty indignation of the Contessa, that he had dared to take any step unauthorised by herself: the hundred rumours in the household: the questionings as to who had saddled and prepared his horse, what road he had taken, and so on.
There are natures—there are even families—in which a strong predominating trait exists to do or say whatever creates astonishment or attracts wonder. It is a distinct form of egotism, and was remarkably conspicuous in the House of Stuart. They all liked much to be objects of marvel and surprise; to have men lost in wonderment over their words or their motives, or speculating with ingenuity as to their secret intentions.
To Gerald himself this taste was a perfect passion, and he loved to see couriers arriving and departing in hot haste, while groups of eager loungers questioned and guessed at what it all might mean. He liked to fancy the important place he thus occupied in men’s thoughts, and would any day have been willing to encounter an actual danger could he only have assured himself of it being widely discussed. This dramatic tendency was strongly marked in the character of Charles Edward; still the actual events of his life were in themselves sufficiently adventurous to display it less prominently; but he ever delighted in these stage effects which strike by situation or a picturesque costume. Gerald inherited this trait, and experienced intense delight in its exercise. He fancied his Eminence the Cardinal, balancing between fear and anger, sending out emissaries on every side, asking counsels here, rejecting suggestions there, while Guglia, too haughty to confess astonishment, would be lost in conjecturing what had become of him.
If it should be wondered at that Gerald felt no more tender sentiment toward the lovely Countess with whom he had been closely domesticated, and who enjoyed so fully all the confidence of his fortunes, let us own frankly that it was not his fault; he did his very best to be in love with her, and for that very reason, perhaps, he failed! Not all the desire in the world will enable a man to catch a contagious malady, nor all his precautions suffice to escape it; so is it with love. Gerald saw in her one who would have adorned the highest station: she was eminently beautiful, and with a grace that was a fascination; she possessed to perfection those arts which charm in society, and had that blending of readiness in repartee with a sort of southern languor that makes a rare element of captivation; and yet with all this he did not fall in love. And the reason was this: Guglia had none of those sudden caprices, those moods of exorbitant hope or dark despondency, those violent alternations of temperament which suggest quick resolve, or quicker action. She was calm—too calm; reflective—too reflective—and, as he thought, infinitely too much occupied in preparing for eventualities either to enjoy the present or boldly to dare the future.
These traits of hers, too, wounded his self-love; they made him feel inferior to her; and he smarted under counsels and advice which came with the authority of dictations. A casual wound to his pride also aided this impression; it was an accidental word he had once overheard, as she was walking one evening with the Cardinal in an alley of the garden adjoining one in which he was standing. They had been discussing his fortunes and his character; and she remarked, with a certain bitterness in her tone, as if contradicting some hopeful anticipation of her uncle. ‘Non, caro zio non, E piu capace de farsi Prête.’ ‘No, my dear uncle: more likely is he to turn priest!’ Strange and significant words from one who held that order in depreciation, and could even dare to avow this estimate to one of themselves.
These words never left Gerald’s mind; they flashed across him as he awoke of a morning; they broke upon him as he lay thinking in his bed; they mingled with his speculations on the future; and, more fatally still, came to his memory at moments when, seated at his side, she inspired hopes of a glorious destiny. Again and again did he ask himself, how was it that esteeming him thus she was willing to join her fate to his? And the only answer was one still more wounding to his self-love.