Chapter 45

"That boy seems to have impressed thee more than the Cardinal himself!" said Midon--"but now I remember well--on the day the Abbe Vergniaud preached his last sermon, and was nearly shot dead by his own son, there was a rumour that his life had been saved by some boy who was an attendant on the Cardinal, and who interposed himself between the Abbe and the flying bullet,--that must have been the one you mean?"

"No doubt--no doubt!" said Patoux, nodding gravely--"There was something about him that seemed a sort of shield against evil--or at least, so said my wife,--and so say my children. Only the other day, my boy Henri--he is big and full of mischief as boys will be--was playing with two or three younger lads, and one of them like a little sneak, stole up behind him and gave him a blow with a stick, which broke in two with the force of the way the young rascal went to work with it. Now, thought I, there will be need for me to step out and stop this quarrel, for Henri will beat that miserable little wretch into a jelly! But nothing of the sort! My boy turned round with a bright laugh--picked up the two pieces of the stick and gave them back to the little coward with a civil bow "Hit in front next time!" he said. And the little wretch turned tail and began to boo-hoo in fine fashion--crying as if he had been hurt instead of Henri. But they are the best friends in the world now. I asked Henri about it afterwards, and he turned as red as an apple in the cheeks. 'I wanted to kill him, father,' he said,--'but I knew that the boy who was with Cardinal Bonpre would not have done it--and so I did not!' Now look you, for a rough little fellow such as Henri, that was a great victory over his passions--and there is no doubt the Cardinal's little foundling was the cause of his so managing himself."

Pierre Midon had nothing to say in answer,--the subject was getting beyond him, and he was a man who, when thought became difficult, gave up thinking altogether.

And while these two simple-minded worthies were thus talking and strolling together home through the streets of Paris, Cyrillon Vergniaud, having parted from the few friends who had paid him the respect of their attendance at his father's grave, was making his way towards the Champs Elysees in a meditative frame of mind, when his attention was suddenly caught and riveted by a placard set up in front of one of the newspaper kiosks at the corner of a boulevard, on which in great black letters, was the name "Angela Sovrani." His heart gave one great bound--then stood still--the streets of the city reeled round him, and he grew cold and sick. "Meurtre de la celebre Angela Sovrani!"

Hardly knowing what he was about, he bought the paper. The news was in a mere paragraph briefly stating that the celebrated artist had been found stabbed in her studio, and that up to the present there was no trace of the unknown assassin.

Passionate and emotional as his warm nature was, the great tears rushed to Cyrillon's eyes. In one moment he realized what he had been almost unconsciously cherishing in his own mind ever since Angela's beautiful smile had shone upon him. When in the few minutes of speech he had had with her she admitted herself to be the mysterious correspondent who had constantly written to him as "Gys Grandit," fervently sympathising with his theories, and urging him on to fresh and more courageous effort, he had been completely overcome, not only with surprise, but also with admiration. It had taken him some time to realize that she, the greatest artist of her day, was actually his unknown friend of more than two years' correspondence. He knew she was engaged to be married to her comrade in art, Florian Varillo, but that fact did not prevent him from feeling for her all the sudden tenderness, the instinctive intimacy of spirit with spirit, which in the highest natures means the highest love. Then,--they had all been brought together so strangely!--his father, and himself, with Cardinal Bonpre,--and she--the Cardinal's fair niece, daughter of a proud Roman house,--she had not turned away from the erring and repentant priest whom the Church had cast out; she had given him her hand at parting, and had been as sweetly considerate of his feelings as though she had been his own daughter. And when he was ill and dying at the Chateau D'Agramont, she had written to him two or three times in the kindest and tenderest way, and her letters had not been answered, because the Abbe was too ill to write, and he, Cyrillon, had been afraid--lest he should say too much! And now--she was dead?--murdered? No!--he would not believe it!

"God is good!" said Cyrillon, crushing the paper in his hand and raising his eyes to the cloudy heavens--"He does nothing that is unnecessarily cruel. He would not take that brilliant creature away till she had won the reward of her work--happiness! No!--something tells me this news is false!--she cannot be dead! But I will start for Rome to-night."

He returned to the cheap pension where he had his room, and at once packed his valise. With all his fame he was extremely poor; he had for the most part refused to take payment for his books and pamphlets which had been so freely spread through France, preferring to work for his daily bread in the fields of an extensive farm near his birthplace in Touraine. He had begun there as a little lad, earning his livelihood by keeping the birds away from the crops--and had steadily risen by degrees, through his honesty and diligence, to the post of superintendent or bailiff of the whole concern. No one was more trusted than he by his employers,--no one more worthy of trust. But his wages were by no means considerable,--and though he saved as much as he could, and lived on the coarsest fare, it was a matter of some trouble for him to spare the money to take him from Paris to Rome. What cash he had, he carried about him in a leathern bag, and this he now emptied on the table to estimate the strength of his finances. Any possibility of changing his mind and waiting for further news from Rome did not occur to him. One of his chief characteristics was the determined way he always carried through anything he had set his mind upon. In one of his public speeches he had once said--"Let all the powers of hell oppose me, I will storm them through and pass on! For the powers of Heaven are on MY side!"--the audacity and daring of this utterance carrying away his audience in a perfect whirlwind of enthusiasm. And though it is related of a certain cynical philosopher, that when asked by one of his scholars for a definition of hell, he dashed into the face of his enquirer an empty purse for answer, the lack of funds was no obstacle to Cyrillon's intended journey.

"Because if I can go no other way, I will persuade the guard to let me ride in the van, or travel in company with a horse or dog--quite as good animals as myself in their way," he thought.

With a characteristic indifference to all worldly matters he had entirely forgotten that the father whom he had just buried had died wealthy, and that his entire fortune had been left to the son whom he had so lately and strangely acknowledged. And when,--while he was still engaged in counting up his small stock of money,--a knock came at the door, and a well-dressed man of business-like appearance entered with a smiling and propitiatory air, addressing him as "Monsieur Vergniaud," Cyrillon did not know at all what to make of his visitor. Sweeping his coins together with one hand, he stood up, his flashing eyes glancing the stranger over carelessly.

"Your name, sir?" he demanded--"I am not acquainted with you."

The smiling man unabashed, sought about for a place to put down his shiny hat, and smiled still more broadly.

"No!" he said--"No! You would not be likely to know me. I have not the celebrity of Gys Grandit! I am only Andre Petitot--a lawyer, residing in the Boulevard Malesherbes. I have just come from your father's funeral."

Cyrillon bowed gravely, and remained silent.

"I have followed you," pursued Monsieur Petitot affably, "as soon as I could, according to the instructions I received, to ask when it will be convenient for you to hear me read your father's will?"

The young man started.

"His will!" he ejaculated. He had never given it a thought. "Yes. May I take a chair? There are only two in the room, I perceive! Thanks!" And the lawyer sat down and began drawing off his gloves,--"Your father had considerable means,--though he parted with much that he might have kept, through his extraordinary liberality to the poor--"

"God bless him!" murmured Cyrillon.

"Yes--yes--no doubt God will bless him!" said Monsieur Petitot amicably--"According to your way of thinking, He ought to do so. But personally, I always find the poor extremely ungrateful, and God certainly does not bless ME whenever I encourage them in their habits of idleness and vice! However, that is not a question for discussion at present. The immediate point is this--your father made his will about eighteen months ago, leaving everything to you. The wording of the will is unusual, but he insisted obstinately on having it thus set down--"

Here the lawyer drew a paper out of his pocket, fixed a pair of spectacles on his nose, and studied the document intently--"Yes!--it reads in this way:--' Everything of which I die possessed to my son, Cyrillon Vergniaud, born out of wedlock, but as truly my son in the sight of God, as Ninette Bernadin was his mother, and my wife, though never so legalised before the world, but fully acknowledged by me before God, and before the Church which I have served and disobeyed.' A curious wording!" said Petitot, nodding his head a great many times--"Very curious! I told him so--but he would have it his own way,--moreover, I am instructed to publish his will in any Paris paper that will give it a place. Now this clause is to my mind exceedingly disagreeable, and I wish I could set it aside."

"Why?" asked Cyrillon quietly.

"My dear young man! Can you ask? Why emphasise the fact of your illegitimacy to the public!"

"Why disguise it?" returned Cyrillon. "You must remember that I have another public than the merely social,--the people! They all know what I am, and who I am. They have honoured me. They shall not despise me. And they would despise me if I sought to hold back from them what my father bade me tell. Moreover, this will gives my mother the honour of wifehood in the sight of God,--and I must tell you, monsieur l'avocat, that I am one of those who care nothing what the world says so long as I stand more or less clear with the world's Creator!"

His great dark eyes were brilliant,--his face warm with the fire of his inward feeling. Monsieur Petitot folded up his document and looked at him with an amiable tolerance.

"Wonderful--wonderful!" he said--"But of course eccentricities WILL appear in the world occasionally!--and you must pardon me if I venture to think that you are certainly one of them. But I imagine you have nograsped the whole position. The money--I should saythe fortune--which your father has left to you, will make you a gentleman--"

He paused, affrighted. Drawing himself up to his full height, young Vergniaud confronted him in haughty amazement.

"Gentleman!" he cried--"What do you mean by the term? A loafer?--a lounger in the streets?--a leerer at women? Or a man who works for daily food from sunrise to sunset, and controls his lower passions by hard and honest labour! Gentleman! What is that? Is it to live lazily on the toil of others, or to be up and working one's self, and to eat no bread that one has not earned? Will you answer me?"

"My dear sir, you must really excuse me!" said Petitot nervously--" I am quite unable to enter into any sort of discussion with you on these things! Please recollect that my life as a lawyer, depends entirely on men's stupidities and hypocrisies,--if they all entertained your views I should have to beg in the streets, or seek another profession. In my present business I should have nothing whatever to do. You perceive the position? Yes, of course you do!" For Cyrillon with one of the quick changes of mood habitual to him, smiled, as his temporary irritation passed like a cloud, and his eyes softened--"You see, I am a machine,--educated to be a machine; and I am set down to do certain machine-like duties,--and one of these duties is,--regardless of your fame, your eccentric theories, your special work which you have chosen to make for yourself in the world,--to put you in possession of the money your father left you--"

"Can you now--at once--" said Cyrillon suddenly--"give me enough money to go to Rome to-night?"

Monsieur Petitot stared.

"To go to Rome to-night?" he echoed--"Dear me, how very extraordinary! I beg your pardon! . . . of course--most certainly! I can advance you any sum you want--would ten thousand francs suffice?"

"Ten thousand francs!" Cyrillon laughed. "I never had so much money in all my life!"

"No? Well, I have not the notes about me at the moment, but I will send you up that sum in an hour if you wish it. Your father's will entitles you to five million francs, so you see I am not in any way endangering myself by advancing you ten thousand."

Cyrillon was quite silent. The lawyer studied him curiously, but could not determine whether he was pleased or sorry at the announcement of his fortune. His handsome face was pale and grave,--and after a pause he said simply--

"Thank you! Then I can go to Rome. If you will send me the money you speak of I shall be glad, as it will enable me to start to-night. For the rest,--kindly publish my father's will as he instructed you to do,--and I--when I return to Paris, will consult you on the best way in which I can dispose of my father's millions."

"Dispose of them!" began Petitot amazedly. Young Vergniaud interrupted him by a slight gesture.

"Pardon me, Monsieur, if I ask you to conclude this interview! For the present, I want nothing else in the world but to get to Rome as quickly as possible!--apres ca, le deluge!"

He smiled--but his manner was that of some great French noble who gently yet firmly dismisses the attentions of a too-officious servant,--and Petitot, much to his own surprise, found himself bowing low, and scrambling out of the poorly furnished room in as much embarrassment as though he had accidentally stumbled into a palace where his presence was not required.

And Cyrillon, left to himself, gathered up all the coins he had been counting out previous to the lawyer's arrival, and tied them again together in the old leathern bag; then having closed and strapped his little travelling valise, sat down and waited. Punctually to the time indicated, that is to say, in one hour from the moment Petitot had concluded his interview with the celebrated personage whom he now mentally called "an impossible young man," a clerk arrived bringing the ten thousand francs promised. He counted the notes out carefully,--Cyrillon watching him quietly the while, and taking sympathetic observation of his shabby appearance, his thread-bare coat, and his general expression of pinched and anxious poverty.

"You will perceive it is all right, Monsieur," he said humbly, as he finished counting.

"What are you, mon ami?" asked Cyrillon; scarcely glancing at the notes but fixing a searching glance on the messenger who had brought them.

"I?" and the clerk coughed nervously and blushed,--"Oh, I am nothing, Monsieur! I am Monsieur Petitot's clerk, that is all!"

"And does he pay you well?"

"Thirty francs a week, Monsieur. It is not bad,--only this--I was young a few years ago, and I married--and two dear little ones came--so it is a pull at times to make everything go as it should--not that I am sorry for myself at all, oh no! For I am well off as the people go--"

Cyrillon interrupted him.

"Yes--as the people go! That is what you all say, you patient, brave souls! See you, my friend, I do not want all this money--"and he took up a note for five hundred francs--"Take this and make the wife and little ones happy!"

"Monsieur!" stammered the astonished clerk--"How can I dare--!"

"Dare! Nay, there is no daring in freely taking what your brother freely gives you! You must let me practise what I preach, my friend, otherwise I am only a fraud and unfit to live. God keep you!"

The clerk still stood trembling, afraid to take up the note, and unable through emotion to speak a word, even of thanks. Upon which, Cyrillon folded up the note and put it himself in the man's pocket.

"There!--go and make happiness with that bit of paper!" he said--"Who can tell through what dirty usurer's hand it has been, carrying curses with it perchance on its way! Use it now for the comfort of a woman and her little children, and perhaps it will bring blessing to a living man as well as to a departed soul!"

And he literally put the poor stupefied fellow outside his door, shutting it gently upon him.

That night he left for Rome. And as the express tore its grinding way along over the iron rails towards the south, he repeated to himself over and over again as in a dream--

"No--Angela Sovrani is not dead! She cannot be dead! God is too good for that. He will not let her die before she knows--before she knows I love her!"

XXXIII.

The chain of circumstance had lengthened by several links round the radiant life of Sylvie Hermenstem since that bright winter morning when she had been startled out of her reverie, in the gardens of the Villa Borghese, by the unexpected appearance of Monsignor Gherardi. The untimely deaths of the Marquis Fontenelle and the actor Miraudin in the duel over her name, had caused so much malicious and cruel gossip, that she had withdrawn herself almost entirely from Roman society, which had, with one venomous consent, declared that she was only marrying Aubrey Leigh to shield herself from her esclandre with the late Marquis. And then the murderous attack on her friend Angela Sovrani, which occurred almost immediately after her engagement to Aubrey was announced, had occupied all her thoughts--so that she had almost forgotten the promise she had made to grant a private interview to Gherardi whenever he should seek it. And she was not a little vexed one morning when she was talking to her betrothed concerning the plans which were now in progress for their going to England as soon as possible, to receive a note reminding her of that promise, and requesting permission to call upon her that very afternoon.

"How very unfortunate and tiresome!" said Sylvie, with a charming pout and upward look at her lover, who promptly kissed the lips that made such a pretty curve of disdain--"I suppose he wants to give me a serious lecture on the responsibilities of marriage! Shall I receive him, Aubrey? I remember when I met him last that he had something important to say about Cardinal Bonpre."

"Then you must certainly give him an audience," answered Aubrey--"You may perhaps find out what has happened to bring the good Cardinal into disfavour at the Vatican, for there is no doubt that he is extremely worried and anxious. He is strongly desirous of leaving Rome at once with that gentle lad Manuel, who, from all I can gather, has said something to displease the Pope. Angela is out of danger now--and I am trying to persuade the Cardinal to accompany us to England, and be present at our marriage."

"That would be delightful!" said Sylvie with a smile,--"But my Aubrey, where are we going to be married?"

"In England, as I said--not here!" said Aubrey firmly--"Not here, where evil tongues have spoken lies against my darling!" He drew her into his arms and looked at her fondly. "I want you to start for England soon, Sylvie--and if possible, I should like you to go, not only with the faithful Bozier, but also in the care of the Cardinal. I will precede you by some days, and arrange everything for your reception. And then we will be married--in MY way!"

Sylvie said nothing--she merely nestled like a dove in the arms of her betrothed, and seemed quite content to accept whatever ordinance he laid down for the ruling of her fate.

"I think you must see Gherardi," he resumed--"Write a line and say you will be happy to receive him at the hour he appoints."

Sylvie obeyed--and despatched the note at once to the Vatican by her man-servant.

Aubrey looked at her intently.

"I wonder--Sylvie, I wonder--" he began, and then stopped.

She met his earnest eyes with a smile in her own.

"You wonder what, caro mio?" she enquired.

"I wonder whether you could endure a very great trial--or make a very great sacrifice for my sake!" he said,--then as he saw her expression, he took her little hand and kissed it.

"There! Forgive me! Of course you would!--only you look such a slight thing--such a soft flower of a woman--like a rose-bud to be worn next the heart always--that it seems difficult to picture you as an inflexible heroine under trying circumstances. Yet of course you would be."

"I make no boast, my Aubrey!" she said gently.

He kissed her tenderly,--reverently,--studying her sweet eyes and delicate colouring with all the fond scrutiny of a love which cannot tire of the thing it loves.

"Are you going round to see Angela this morning?" he asked.

"Yes, I always go. She is much better--she sits up a little every day now."

"She says nothing of her assassin?"

"Nothing. But I know him!"

"We all know him!" said Aubrey sternly--"But she will never speak--she will never let the world know!"

"Ah, but the world will soon guess!" said Sylvie--"For everyone is beginning to ask where her fiance is--why he has shown no anxiety--why he has not been to see her--and a thousand other questions."

"That does not matter! While she is silent, no one dare accuse him. What a marvellous spirit of patience and forgiveness she has!"

"Angela is like her name--an angel!" declared Sylvie impulsively, the tears springing to her eyes--"I could almost worship her, when I see her there in her sickroom, looking so white and frail and sad,--quiet and patient--thanking us all for every little service done--and never once mentioning the name of Florian--the man she loved so passionately. Sometimes the dear old Cardinal sits beside her and talks--sometimes her father,--Manuel is nearly always with her, and she is quite easy and content, one would almost say happy when he is there, he is so very gentle with her. But you can see through it all the awful sorrow that weighs upon her heart,--you can see she has lost something she can never find again,--her eyes look so wistful--her smile is so sad--poor Angela!"

Aubrey was silent a moment. "What of the Princesse D'Agramont?"

"Oh, she is simply a treasure!" said Sylvie enthusiastically--"She and my dear old Bozier are never weary in well-doing! As soon as Angela can be moved, the Princesse wants to take her back to Paris,--because then Rome can be allowed to pour into her studio to see her great picture."

"What does Angela say to that?"

"Angela seems resigned to anything!" answered Sylvie. "The only wish she ever expresses is that Manuel should not leave her."

"There is something wonderful about that boy," said Aubrey slowly--"From the first time I saw him he impressed me with a sense of something altogether beyond his mere appearance. He is a child--yet not a child--and I have often felt that he commands me without my realising that I am so commanded."

"Aubrey! How strange!"

"Yes, it is strange!--" and Aubrey's eyes grew graver with the intensity of his thought--"There is some secret--but--" he broke off with a puzzled air--"I cannot explain it, so it is no use thinking about it! I went to Varillo's studio yesterday and asked if there had been any news of him--but there was none. I wonder where the brute has gone!"