Part 11

What then, had the woman he regarded as Perfection's self, had she met only one compulsive occasion of declaring her unbiassed opinion on a subject of principle; and had she proved herself divested of any? Devoted alone to the dominancy of passion, whether it point to the right or to the wrong? To him, who had been brought up at the feet of the christian instructor of Lindisfarne, it was no excuse that devotedness to love, or zeal in friendship, were her motives for abandoning the rule of human conduct. They were the hills of paradise, on which man might repose his grateful heart, but there was a heaven above them; and when its flaming sword passed between him and his earthly Eden, Louis believed there should be obedience without appeal.

"Oh!" cried he, writhing under the recollections of the last scene at the palace, "had I known too late, that such thou art, how should I have withered in those arms?" Louis felt that he would rather be clasped at once in the icy embrace of death, than take to his bosom the most beautiful form in nature that was cold to the soul of his soul, an immortalizing aspiration after virtue and the approbation of his creator.

"Oh, Otteline," exclaimed he, "a gulph that is impassable, now divides us!"

As these reflections gradually subsided into sleep, her image kept its station in his dreams; but it was not as heretofore, when his visionary fancy used to pourtray her smiling in groves of perpetual spring:--She now appeared in rugged scenes of affright, accusing him of faithlessness; and with menacing gestures stimulating unseen personages to revenge.

He did not awake till the sun had risen far above the horizon; and then he found himself stretched on the floor, with his head pillowed on his arm. The cheerfulness of the busy morning hour shone on all without; while within, the desolation of loneliness and of discomfort, sat, like a troubled spirit, on every gloomy piece of furniture.

"But this is the day, the blissful day," cried he, "when the bewildering spell which has so long enwrapped me, will be broken! I shall again mingle in the social meetings of my fellow-creatures; and find myself amongst a variety of persons, to whom I can speak, and rationally companion my mind and my enjoyments.--Hitherto, for these three months past, I have gone gliding about, fearful of human glance, or friendly cognizance, till my crazed faculties fancied a guardian-angel in a beauteous vapour! But now, the mists disperse. Propitious morning, bright and transparent, I greet your opening!--You will unfold to me my father! you will release me from the wild and feverish dream in which my life has wasted, ever since this dreary mansion became the confidant of my thoughts!"

In contemplating such a happy consummation of his most sacred wishes, he passed to his own apartment; where, redressing himself with all his wonted elasticity of spirits, he prepared for the coming events of the day. On entering the saloon, he found Gerard placing the breakfast tray. The man told him that Martini was below, with a message from the Sieur.

"Send him to me," returned Louis, anxious to hear of Ignatius's safe arrival at Saint Polten's; and eager to be told any thing that might relate to his father's approach.

Martini obeyed the summons with alacrity. His appearance was full of gaiety, and his dress, (which he took pains to display, under a large Hungarian great coat,) was of a splendor that instantly attracted the notice of Louis, as much from its novelty as its costliness. The Italian's former habit, was a russet grey, without ornament or smartness; but this was scarlet, and gorgeously laced with gold.

"Why Martini!" cried Louis, "That is a gala dress!--and to honour the ambassador, I suppose!--you have left him well; and conducted your noble master safe?"

Martini was at that moment viewing his own figure, with peculiar complacency in one of the large mirrors of the apartment. Louis could have laughed, as he repeated his question to the happy coxcomb.

"I am impatient as yourself, Signor," replied he, "to see the entrance of the Ambassador. You will then know that I do not wear this livery without a right!"

"I did not suspect it, my good Martini," returned Louis, "but you do not tell me when His Excellency is to arrive?" "By five in the evening, at the _Palais d'Espagne_; and thither I am to conduct you to await him."

"In a habit as splendid as your own?" asked Louis, with a smiling nod to his laced vest. Martini coloured, and throwing a proud glance over his embroidery, exclaimed--"Signor, I have been some years with my master; and seniority of services, with some great men, has more consequence than short duties in higher posts."

"I wish it were the rule with all great men!" replied Louis, "And be assured Martini, I shall always have too much respect for your tried fidelity to your master, ever to wish to rival you in his good graces. But come, answer my twice-demanded question; how did you leave him at Saint Polten?"

"I did not leave him there at all," replied Martini; "he left me last night; and at parting, gave me a commission to execute a million of orders, e're he should return."

"Then he went alone?" asked Louis, with an alarm he would not shew; "or what were his attendants?"

"He might, or he might not have some of the Ambassador's people to meet him on the road; but on receiving a letter at midnight by Castanos, he called me to his chamber; and, after giving me his commands, went away, telling me I should see him no more till we met this evening in the _Palais d'Espagne_."

"And have you heard nothing of him?"

"Nothing."

"But Castanos accompanied him?"

"I do not know. The surly old Spaniard went out before my master; and would not answer me when I spoke to him."

Louis was disturbed at this vague information. The threatening language he had heard last night, and the unseasonable hour of Ignatius's journey, filled him with apprehensions for the event. But, unobservant of the troubled countenance which only appeared to listen to him, the volatile Italian continued the conversation in rapturous descriptions of the _Palais d'Espagne_; its costly furniture; the splendid retinue which were placed there to welcome its future lord; and the magnificent entertainment that was preparing for his reception. "Ah," cried the transported valet, "who will see us there, and believe we could ever have endured, for so many months, the hard vigils of that horrid College!"

"And yet," said Louis, striving to recall his attention from his growing fears respecting the safety of Ignatius; "it seems to me that College seclusion, and even its austerities, are better calculated to please the taste of your master; than the public bustle, and scenes of luxury, you have just described."

"That may be, Signor!" replied Martini, "but times change men, as men change the times; so, I make no more manifestoes for my master, than for myself."

"But I wish you had taken more care of him!" returned Louis, rising from his seat; "Indeed Martini, after his having been once assailed, you ought not to have allowed him to set out alone."

"Allowed him!" retorted the Italian, "allowed my master! He has never been _allowed_ in his life! He has always done just as his will impells him: and, I know not the man on earth, who dare to say to him, _I withhold_, or _I allow_!"

"You mistake me. I did not mean to invest you with a lord's controul over the Sieur; but ought you not to have asked his permission to attend him? Ought you not to have entreated him, when you knew, by so recent an experience, that the assassin's poniard lies in wait for his life?"

"My master commands, and I obey, Signor!" replied Martini, "that is the duty he requires of me, and he would banish me for presumption, should I proffer any other."

"He ought to be a god," returned Louis, "to live in such proud loneliness! But I am too much of a mortal, not to be anxious about his safety, and I request you to let me have the earliest intelligence respecting him."

Martini answered carelessly, "that as things were, it was impossible to learn any thing until the suite should arrive;" "but," added he, "I shall then have the happiness of conducting you to the _Palais d'Espagne_, where you will see him."

"Be punctual to your hour;" replied Louis, "for I shall impatiently await you."

Martini crossed himself, in ratification of his word, and with a step, light as his spirits, danced out of the apartment.

"Joy, the joy of the heart!" ejaculated Louis, as he looked after the jocund Italian, "is not gay; it is soul-centered; and calls for meditation on its own perfection!"

Louis's imagination, kindled by the ardent affection he had ever cherished in his bosom for his father, was again called forth to set that image of his idolatry in a halo of the purest lustre. The name of parent seemed to consecrate the adoration of his heart. There could be no excess, he thought, in loving him from whom his being and his honour were derived; and, in the ardour of his enthusiasm, he beseeched the Almighty to bless him with a virtue worthy of such a father; and, that in every contest with his passions, he might conduct himself as became his ancestry on earth, and his nobler origin in heaven!

In hours like these, Louis learnt the full value of the pious offices to which the instructions of the Pastor of Lindisfarne had habituated his mind. The heavenly serenity which presided over the heart of the venerable man, was the best proof of his precepts. "My son," he used to say, "whether you are agitated with joy, or with grief, let your first counsellor be the dispenser of both. His gracious spirit is ready to assuage the burning glances of the one, by the dewy incense of a grateful heart; and he will illuminate the shadows of the other, by the starry light of faith and hope."

Louis did not permit the contemplation of future high duties, to dull the recollection of present ones, however lowly, that were yet to be performed. He gathered the papers in his writing-room, and confided them to an obscure closet in a remote part of the Chateau; where, he believed, they would be secure from either curiosity or depredation, till he should be commissioned to transfer them to some other custody.

As the time drew nigh for the promised summons to the _Palais d'Espagne_, his watch was drawn out again and again. But when minutes only intervened between his wishes and the eventful hour, he held it in his hand, and paced the room with a beating heart. He heard a step in the gallery. He flew to the door. It was Martini.

"Is he arrived?" cried Louis, rushing towards him.

"No," replied the Italian. "But haste. I expect the cavalcade every moment, and your carriage is at the gate."

Louis seemed to have made but one step from the hall to the carriage. He was seated in it, and leaning breathless against the back, with his hand over his face, when Martini jumped in by his side. The lively valet discoursed with his usual fluency, but what he said, his auditor did not know: he had no outward perception, all was absorbed within. The vehicle stopped; he thought the horses must have flown, when Martini exclaimed, "we are at the _Palais d'Espagne_. Signor you must alight."

Louis aroused himself, and looked around. He was in the court-yard of a superb mansion, thronged with a crowd of liveried attendants walking to and fro under the colonades and portico. The spacious doors of the house stood open. Louis sprang from the carriage, and, without noticing the men who bowed as he passed, hurried through the great vestibule after Martini. The valet preceded him up the lofty stair-case to a range of gorgeous apartments. The first and second were full of Spanish merchants, resident at Vienna; eagerly awaiting the entrance of an Embassador, who had obtained the restitution of all the privileges, which had been wrested from them when the Austrian family lost the crown of Spain. The next chamber was a saloon of Imperial magnificence.

"Here, Signor," said the Italian, "you must attend the commands of the Duke de Ripperda." And without another word, he bowed slightly, and hastened away.

Louis's feelings were wound up almost to torture, during the short interval between that moment, and the one in which his expecting ear caught the trampling of horses, and the buz of an approaching crowd. He rushed to the window, and beheld a train of travelling carriages filled with the suite of the embassy, sweeping by the great gates of the mansion, while the court-yard was filled by populace, and an immense cavalcade in splendid Spanish uniforms. Immediately following the latter, appeared six horses, richly caparisoned, and drawing a carriage surmounted with the ducal coronet. Louis saw no more. That carriage contained his father! He started from the window. The air resounded with shouts. He pressed his clasped hands on his bursting heart. A few minutes more, and Martini darted into the outer-room that contained the merchants. The door was open; and Louis heard him say, "The Ambassador!" The next instant he beheld a man of such resplendent aspect--a step, a form, an air; a bowing dignity, as he bent his gracious head, waving with white plumes to the grateful Spaniards who thronged around him--that Louis felt at once, it was his Father! His feet were rivetted to the spot on which he stood; his eyes on that august figure; but it was with the dazzled gaze of eager, expecting joy.

The crowd separated from before their benefactor, and he entered the saloon. As he advanced into the room, the door was closed behind him, and while the unshorn star of prosperity seemed fixed in his magnificent countenance, he made a hasty step forward, and extended his arms to his son.

With a cry of joy, in which nothing was articulate but--"My Father!" Louis precipitated himself towards him, and fell upon his breast. The Duke strained him to his bosom; but that over-wrought heart had ceased to beat; and, with a moistened cheek, he pressed the insensible lips of his too happy son.

CHAP. XI.

Louis re-opened his eyes on a superb couch, in a magnificent bed-chamber, and surrounded by the physicians who had accompanied the suite of his father from Madrid. A few minutes more restored him the possession of all his faculties; and looking around, he did not seek in vain for the noble form, whose parental embrace was yet warm on his heart. Seeing that his son was recovered, the Duke made a sign for every person to leave the room. Louis was going to rise, but his father checked him by a motion of his hand; and drawing near him, sat down by his side.

They were now alone. The Duke had taken his hand.--Louis kissed it reverentially. "Ah, my father!" cried he, "if words could utter all that is in my soul, towards your honoured self! Revered for your own sake,--sacred for that of my angelic mother!" Tears bathed the hand, which he sealed again with a son's devoted lips.

"Louis," said the Duke. Louis started, and looked around, and then turned to his father. Ripperda silently regarded the enquiring movements of his son.

"Sir," said Louis, "did I not hear the Sieur Ignatius speak to me?"

"You heard the voice of your father," returned the Duke, and he smiled. It was the smile which Louis had never beheld on other mouth but one! He gazed on his father's face with searching amazement. Ripperda still wore his plumed hat. He took it off, to submit himself the more completely to the inspection of his son. Louis felt that the voice and smile were those of the dark-visaged and reserved Ignatius; but the face, on which he now looked, was refulgent with manly beauty, and the undisguised consciousness of high desert. Though the resemblance was so extraordinary in two respects, yet, as in every other point the dissimilarity was as striking, Louis had no suspicion of the truth; and concluding that the Jesuit was some illustrious Spanish branch of the Ripperda family, he earnestly replied,--"but where is the Sieur? Your voice, my father, is so exactly his, I guess I must revere him as a near relation, as well as your steadfast friend! But where is he? For many reasons, I am anxious to know that he is safe."

"He is safe," returned the Duke, "and it gives me no small satisfaction that you have been obliged to ask that question of me."

"Oh, Sir," replied his son, "though I might not always conduct myself in the manner the Sieur Ignatius would approve; yet, I had hoped you could not doubt that I would eventually give him all my reverence."

"I did not refer to that," resumed the Duke, "but, as you had suspicions respecting the real situation and authority of that man; and did not misconceive the character of your father; when, through all the long months in which you obeyed commands that would not suffer an appeal; and you so often doubted that the Baron de Ripperda could really submit his son to such uncontrolable delegated power; how did it happen, that you never suspected the mysterious Ignatius, and your father to be one and the same person?"

"How?" exclaimed Louis, hardly conscious that he had spoken, while, in hesitating astonishment his eye hastily scanned the august form before him. It was indeed like that of Ignatius, majestic in every proportion, but with more meridian vigour, with a more gracious air of command. No trace of age discomposed the lofty symmetry of his figure; no mark of time was visible on his capacious brow; cleared from the darkening dye with which he had stained his complexion and his hair, his eyes shone bright as the heavens, which their hue resembled. On the side of his forehead, under the hair, Louis could discern the scar which had been inflicted under the portico of the Jesuits' College. He shuddered at what might have been the issue of that stroke; and thought what would have been his agony, had he known that it was his father's hand which closed so deathfully upon his, in the dark chamber of murder. He could not speak, but his eyes and quivering lip, told all that was passing in his mind.

"It was necessary," resumed the Duke, "that the negotiation with Austria should be managed with dispatch and secrecy. The Queen proposed that I should undertake it in disguise. I left Madrid under an ostensible rumour, that I was gone to Russia on an affair connected with the Baltic trade. At the place of usual embarkation, I dismissed all my attendants, excepting Castanos and Martini. They were essential to my proceedings. In the same day, I assumed the habit of a Jesuit; and with my credentials disposed about my person, made my way to Vienna. Besides the persons I have named, the Empress Elizabeth alone was privy to my disguise. Her confidence in me inspired the idea of the negociation; and her own interest in some of its articles warranted my faith in her secrecy;--our success, you know. But while I was effecting these great objects for my country, I chose the opportunity to give my son his first lesson in the science to which fate has destined him. Louis, I am fully satisfied with all you then performed. But you have yet much to learn, and more to practise. You are now to be plunged into the world, to stem the eddies of two contending vortices, duty and pleasure! Mark me, and write on the tablets of your heart what I am going to say. Use the one, to serve the other! But let me see that your choice will be that of Hercules. You will meet many to persuade you to the contrary; but remember, you may have a prompt guide in him who has most interest in your welfare; therefore, Louis, I ask your fearless confidence?"

While Ripperda continued to speak, his son thought within himself; if my father were disguised in the sombre vestments of the Jesuit, his spirit was even under a darker mask; I cannot recognise the harsh and despotic Ignatius, in the mild exhortations of this gracious parent!

"Oh, my father!" exclaimed he, throwing himself on the Duke's bosom, "you have your son's heart!--and in that, where is the thought that can be hidden from you!"

Ripperda smiled, "Louis," said he, "these impassioned emotions may be convincing witnesses of your southern origin!--but you must imitate your father; and temper your Spanish blood with some of the phlegm of the country in which you received your education. With one half of mankind, this sort of feeling would be ridiculed, because not understood, while those who could comprehend it, would watch it as the betrayer of your secrets, and manage it to the establishment of their own. The heart is man's citadel, it is only open country with feeble woman! And perhaps, there is too much of her nature in all vehement expressions of sensibility!"

Louis coloured, as checked in heart, he raised himself from his father's arms. "Sir," said he, "I dared to shew these sensibilities to my father, because I trusted he knew I was not wanting in the mental strength to prove myself a man."

"True, Louis; but that is a character which ought not to require occasional proofs. It should be manifest in the unvarying equability of your conduct."

Louis looked on his father.

"One of my books is the human countenance;" resumed the Duke, "and your's is very legible at present. I do not require you to change your constitution, but to control its impulses. Endearments are rejected between man and man, because they admit hypocrisy. All can affect to caress; but the sober aspect of real fidelity is not easily assumed. In temperate discourse you look into your companion's eyes, and read his soul. But when the heart is shewn, by the agitation of the nerves, and the head is thrown on the bosom; how can you then find an avenue to the mind? Man, therefore, demands of man, the open, unreserved countenance; and leaves to woman, that caressing enthusiasm, which may either express tenderness, veil modesty, or mask a deceptious heart. Hence, my son, we are oftener deceived in love than friendship; but you must beware of both."

Louis was agitated by the concluding remark. It recalled the image of the Countess, and the last scene wherein he beheld her, which made him wish to forget the rest: quelling, however, every appearance of disturbance, and only returning the kind pressure of his father's hand; with more emphasis than he intended, he exclaimed, "in all things, honoured Sir, I will strive to be obedient to your counsels. But do not despise the expressions of an affection, which would not know a dearer object than yourself!"

"I do not despise, but I restrain them; for you must be habituated to self-command. Cherish the confidence that you now possess. Let me be, indeed, the repository of all your thoughts; and though, in some cases, I may disapprove, you shall never have cause to remember the Sieur Ignatius in your father."

The smile which had so often lightened from the dark lip of the Sieur, now beamed in sun-like radiance over the bright countenance of Ripperda. Louis could have thrown himself again into his arms, and pressed to his grateful bosom, the gracious heart of his father; but he remembered the lesson he had received, and merely clasped his hand to his lips.

Ripperda passed the remainder of the time in which he sat with his son, in giving him instructions relative to their present situation at Vienna. He told him, that in right of his restored rank, he was now Marquis de Montemar; and to honour his father's services in this momentous embassy Their Majesties of Spain had appointed him Secretary of Legation.

"You are young for so responsible an office," continued he; "but the Queen knows how ably you fulfilled my duties, during my wounds; and herself suggested to the King, rewarding your zeal by so answerable an appointment. The courts of both countries are ignorant of this reason; therefore, you must make up in dignity of deportment, what you want in years; and, to common eyes, in previous service. The world is governed by appearance."