Part 9

"And yet, Sir," cried Louis, "I believe it is he who has ventured his safety to give me this warning!"

"It may be," returned the Sieur, "and he no less a serpent still. But for your escape, and that of the papers, I am obliged to him, and we will dismiss the subject. There is another, on which I must give you a necessary hint; the Countess Altheim."

At that name, the conscious blood rushed into the before-blanched cheek of Louis, and his heart beat with an alarm to which he could assign no cause. The Sieur paused a moment or two, regarding his pupil with a steady look before he went on.

"You have too much of the woman in your face, young man;" said he, "to keep your own secret, however faithful you may be of another's. I see the pretty favourite has gained her point with your heart; but do not allow your lips to commit your honour, till this public affair is finished, and you may consult your father's opinion of such an alliance. A rash step here would offend him for ever."

Louis bowed his acquiescence to this command, but it was not with a constrained air. The Sieur saw that he was grateful for the gentleness with which his confession had been treated, and respectfully obedient to the injunction which concluded the discourse.

Louis returned to the Chateau by the same track he had left it, and therefore reached his home in safety. The next day passed as the former; and having just finished his hermit stroll under the silver light of a bright March moon, he was slowly retracing his steps to the house, when he met Gerard approaching him with information that the Sieur Ignatius awaited him in the saloon. This unexpected visit alarmed Louis. He instantly feared that some fatal turn had taken place with regard to the completion of their labours, and that the Sieur had come to announce it. He hastened however to his summons.

Wrapped as before in his large dark mantle, Ignatius was standing in the middle of the room. The black fillet which pressed down his heavy eye-brows, and the hearse-like plumes that pended over them, cast such flickering shadows over his grey visage, that he seemed to Louis, as he stood in the moon-light, more like the awful spectre of his guardian, than his living self.

Louis thought he saw his fears confirmed. He approached, he drew very near to him, and still the Sieur did not speak. Louis could not bear the suspense, and exclaimed, "Sir, you have ill news to tell me?"

"Look on my face," replied Ignatius, in a tone of voice from which neither good nor evil could be gathered, "and try to read what sort of news the disciplined blood of a tried politician will declare."

Louis fixed his eyes as he was commanded, but it was with apprehension; for he thought this beginning was to prepare him for the ruin of their cause. His eyes shrunk from the proud fire which shone in the steady gaze of the Sieur. It might arise from the pride of triumph, or be the bright emanation of determined fortitude! But the latter idea possessed his pupil. The extent of the misfortune he dreaded to hear; as, again and again he had been warned that his father's honour was involved in the fate of this treaty.

"Speak, dear Sir!" cried he, "I cannot guess what has happened, from your countenance."

"Yet," said Ignatius, "it is easy to interpret what you believe ought to be legible there, from yours! But, Louis de Montemar, if you are to follow your father's career, to this moveless complexion you must come at last. Else, vain will it be to discipline your tongue, if your unmanageable blood betray the story. Know then, that our labours have been successful. The Emperor has given his full consent to every demand of Spain."

"Thank God!" exclaimed Louis, clasping his hands, and dropping into a chair. The Sieur seated himself beside him, and without noticing his emotion, (for all the son was then in Louis's heart) he entered into the details of the business. The Imperial family had returned that morning to Vienna. The Empress immediately summoned Ignatius to attend her. He obeyed; and received from Her Majesty those particulars of the Emperor's assent, which were now recounted to the attentive secretary. The Sieur then added, that after he quitted the palace, he referred for further instructions to a packet which the last dispatch from Spain had brought in the Queen's letter-case; and which being superscribed to himself, with the additional words, "only to be opened in the event of the Emperor acceding to our proposals;" he had laid it aside until the present, which was the appointed moment.

"As the conditions were fulfilled," continued the Sieur, "I broke the seal; and the contents are these. A letter from the King, commanding me to announce to their Cæsarean Majesties the entrance of his ambassador into Vienna, in the course of eight-and-forty hours after the information should be communicated to them. And that ambassador, Louis de Montemar," added Ignatius, "is your father."

Louis sprang from his seat. The Sieur rose also, and continued; "in reward of his high services, the King makes him his representative here, with the restitution of his father's title and honours, and an establishment answerable to all these dignities."

This part of the information, Ignatius addressed to ears that heard him not. The word _father_! that sacred idea, which had so long filled the heart and the hopes of Louis, which had seemed the goal whither all his ambitions and his duties pointed; this holy image had sealed up his sense, only to dwell upon the idea of his expected presence. With the announcement of his near approach, Louis thought of nothing else; and covering his face with his hands, the tears of filial love,--of filial triumph,--of gratitude to heaven, that he should at last behold that honoured countenance, poured from his eyes, and bathed his hands. Ignatius gazed on him,--gazed on his heaving,--his sobbing breast. A tear of sympathy, started into even his Stoic eye, as he turned away, and walked in silence down the room.

It was some minutes before Louis could recall himself from the inward temple of his soul, where his grateful heart had prostrated him before the Giver of all Good. When he looked up, he saw the Sieur at a distance, with his back to him, and leaning near the window which looked towards the Danube. Louis approached him;--"your goodness," said he, "has pardoned a son, shewing some natural emotion at so sudden an intimation of soon seeing the most honoured, the most beloved of parents?"

"Such sins are easily forgiven," returned Ignatius, with downward eyelids. "To-morrow, at this hour, your father will be at the _Palais d'Espagne_; the residence, under the late dynasty, of the Spanish ambassador at Vienna. You must be there to greet him."

Louis's eyes answered in the affirmative, for his lips denied their office; and the Sieur proceeded in his further orders. He said, that circumstances rendered it necessary that he should meet the Duke; therefore, as time pressed, his pupil must perform all that was to be done at the palace; and go that night at ten o'clock to the Chancellor Sinzendorff, and deliver to him those three packets. Ignatius had laid several on the table before the entrance of Louis; which he only just now observed: there were other packets to be presented the same night to the Empress; "of whom," continued the Sieur, "Sinzendorff will see the propriety of requesting an immediate audience, to give you the opportunity of announcing the instant approach of the Duke de Ripperda, as the Spanish ambassador; and, when you do it, Louis, you must intimate that the nomination of the Duke is meant as a peculiar mark of the Spanish King's friendship for their Cæsarean Majesties, in thus parting with a man to do them honour, whose presence is as dear to his heart, as invaluable to his interests."

"This will be a hard trial of my diplomatic skill," rejoined Louis, with a happy smile; "to speak of him only as an ambassador."

"You will not, however, shew yourself his son," replied the Sieur, "if you do not put that restraint upon your feelings. Whatever may be his years, he is yet but a puling boy, who is not master of his face, and the veins which color it. Remember, it is a _man_, I have engaged to present in you to the Duke of Ripperda; and that it is he, who exacts of you to name him this night in the Empress's _boudoir_, with as cool an aspect as if you were announcing the arrival of a perfect stranger."

"Ah, Sir!" exclaimed Louis, "who can name the Duke de Ripperda, with the cool utterance which they might give to almost any other man? Is he not loved every where, where known? And where he is only heard of, is he not universally honoured? And can a son name such a father without emotion? Oh, Sir, send some other messenger, if I am to act an impossibility!"

"Well," replied Ignatius, throwing back his lofty plumes, and drawing his hand over his brow, "do your best in this commission, as you have done in other circumstances of management, and I do not doubt that the father you are so proud of, will be satisfied with his son." "I will do my best," cried Louis, seeing that the Sieur was moving to depart, "and, oh, dearest Sir, tell my revered father how impatient I am to meet him--to kneel at his feet--to be clasped in his arms!"--The last words were hardly articulated, from his encreasing emotion, and as the crowding tears again started to his eyes, he dashed them off:--ere he drew his hand from before them, the Sieur had left the apartment,--and he saw him no more!

When the happy Louis found himself alone, he threw himself into a chair to indulge the luxury of his feelings, to bless the time-honoured name of his father; to weep with mingled recollections over the long interval which had passed since his widowed arms had resigned him, a babe, to the tears of his grandfather, now numbered with the dust. He thought of that good old man's tender care. Of the paternal guardianship of his uncle of Lindisfarne, of his benediction when they parted, and the sacred letter which he put into his hand, as the last legacy of his dying mother. In that, she spoke to her only son, as from her seat in Heaven, exhorting him to love and honour his father, as the object in his heart nearest to his God! The letter, Louis soon drew from the case in which he preserved it; and pressing it to his lips, on his knees, as he would have done her sacred hand, he there uttered the fullness of his heart in vows to obey her behest; and to love that father, on whom his conscious eyes had never rested, with, indeed, a double portion of his spirit, for the sake of that father's own noble nature; and for her's, who had resigned her life, in giving him to existence.

These reflections diffused a holy stillness over the happiness which now occupied the heart of Louis. And as the time approached for the fulfilment of his duty at the palace, he collected the royal packets; and putting them in his bosom, wrapped himself in his cloak; and, as the clock struck ten, he entered the carriage with a blissful serenity over his mind, that seemed to breathe of paradise.

CHAP. IX.

Louis delivered the letters of Ignatius to the Chancellor; and in as few words, and with as much composure as he could command, he announced the near approach of the Spanish ambassador. Sinzendorff fixed his observing glance on the fluttering lip that proclaimed the honoured name, and his doubts were confirmed. He read the letters, and then remarked, that his Imperial master would be particularly gratified by the promptitude of this arrival. The intended ambassador must have been sent forward, to be in readiness, for the proper moment of his official appearance; and this preparation fully proved the King of Spain's honourable dependence on the fair dealing of the cabinet of Austria. Again he fixed his eyes on the face of his self-restrained auditor; and after expressing himself in terms of high respect with regard to the Duke de Ripperda, and applauding the decisive step he had taken, in accepting the embassy, he became fully satisfied that it was the son of the Duke he saw before him. The Chancellor smiled within himself at his own discovery, and at the attempted concealment by the Empress; but without observing on either, he addressed Louis still as the secretary de Phaffenberg, and proposed their going immediately to the Altheim apartments.

"We shall certainly find Her Majesty there;" said he, "for the Emperor passes some hours to-night with his confessor, and the Empress told me she meant to enjoy the time in confidential discourse with Countess Otteline."

Louis followed the statesman to the Imperial _boudoir_; and, as he expected, there he found the gracious Elizabeth and her beautiful favourite in close conference. He announced that the Chevalier was in the anti-room, with a commission from the Sieur Ignatius.

"Something extraordinary, by the hour!" cried the Empress, "but I trust no evil report. I am ready to see him."

Louis entered. He did not look on the side where the Countess stood, but approaching his father's illustrious friends with a steadiness of step that surprized himself; and with less visible emotion than he could have hoped, he delivered to her the message from Ignatius; adding, that the Sieur would have had the honour of declaring it in person, had he not been obliged to pass the night in necessary preliminaries to joining the Embassador, in the morning, at St. Polten. In the evening, he would enter with him into Vienna.

The Empress's bright eyes shot a radiant glance on the modest bend of the young secretary's head, as he concluded; and suddenly clasping the Countess in her arms, she exclaimed,--"_Ave Maria!_ This is the crown of the Incas!" The Countess did not comprehend the fulness of her meaning; neither did Louis quite understand it. Sinzendorff thought, that if disappointment had rendered Isabella rash in her threats, success seemed to have a similar effect on Elizabeth, by inflating her with hopes not less alarming. He believed he read in this extraordinary exclamation, that she anticipated a no small share in the wealth of the new world, by her influence over the promised Embassador; and that she would make the marriage settlement for her daughter, an abundant dowry for herself. Whatever were her thoughts, her face was refulgent with animation; and receiving the packets of Ignatius from the hand of Louis with one of her most gracious smiles, she commanded him to take what entertainment the Countess Altheim would afford him, while she should retire with the Chancellor, to examine the papers in her hand.

Louis bowed in obedience, and the Empress and her counsellor withdrew: she smiled to herself, as she closed the door on this auspicious hour for the lovers; for such, she determined it should be. She had herself fanned the admiration of the young secretary into the flame which she now saw kindling on his cheek, as with downward eyes, he saw himself on the point of being left alone with its object! From the first hour of his beholding her, until this present moment, the Empress had condescended to be the adviser and the confident of her beautiful friend. She loved her too sincerely, not to assist in effecting so illustrious a means, as a marriage with the son of Ripperda, of reinstating her in the rank she had lost by her widowhood. But with all this zeal in her cause, the Imperial Elizabeth did not betray the secret of Ripperda; she merely hinted to the ambitious Otteline, that the Chevalier de Phaffenberg was other than he seemed, and, did she marry him, would place her at the height of her desires. "But," added she, "there may exist powers to counteract the wishes only, of the truest lover: you must therefore, lose no opportunity of binding his honour."

With these views, she regretted the week at the Luxemburg, which had necessarily separated the favourite from the object of her present aim. But when he appeared at the palace with his important tidings, the Empress gave way to every glad anticipation; and hoping all things from his unsuspecting and ardent nature, she seized the first opportunity of leaving him with the Countess; hardly doubting, that under the present heart-opening circumstances, he would reveal every secret of his rank, his name, and future plans, to make her his for ever.

Louis no sooner found himself alone with the resistless Otteline, than his throbbing pulse reminded him that his guardian's exhortation was in danger. In spite of himself, his eyes had stolen a glance towards her, as the Empress withdrew; and her personal charms seemed to break upon him, that night, in fuller lustre, even than before, when he thought that nothing could have encreased the perfection of her beauty. Their former meetings were always in a morning, when the dress is more enveloped, and consequently less of the figure is displayed. This was the first time he had seen her at a later hour, and she was habited as she had left the Imperial drawing-room. Her dress was white, and her fair arms and snowy bosom, decorated with jewels, drew the eye to forms that might drive the sculptors of Greece to despair. Her golden tresses were coiled with the same gorgeous bands; while one glittering ringlet, escaped from its confinement, waved over her spotless neck, as if it were the wing of love fluttering towards the guarded regions of her heart. She caught the glance, and the almost smothered sigh, with which Louis affected to turn his attention towards a cage of birds which stood near him.

She did not appear to observe his embarrassment, but gently echoing the sigh, remained leaning against the pedestal of a vase of flowers, with her eyes fixed on the profile of his face. She guessed, that he saw nothing in the gilded cage, but her image in his mind. Again she sighed; and with such an expression, that Louis felt it thrill through his frame. He turned his head, and their eyes met. Her's were full of entrancing softness; his, of a grateful passion, which he would fain have rendered less distinct. She smiled tenderly, and stretched her arm towards him. In that moment he remembered how they had separated: he was again in the same position, at her side, her hand in his, and clasped to his lips! The brilliant roses on her cheeks did not lose their brightness, in this speechless, but eloquent avowal of his love. But the Empress had told her to require _words_!

Her fair fingers trembled in his, when she falteringly articulated--"Chevalier! you have been so long absent--I thought--" She paused, and looked down.

"Not," exclaimed he, "that I had forgotten to be grateful?"

She slowly raised her eyes towards his; and while the softest tears swam over her own, and gemmed a dimpled smile; she half whispered,--"the heart is a coward!"

"Never your's!" cried he, forgetting his determined self-restraint, in the bewitching mazes of her thousand beauties, in the resistless fascination of her words and looks. With a burning blush, she sunk into a chair, but still yielding her hand to his fervent pressure, she suffered him to drop upon one knee by her side.

"Never can you doubt," cried he, "where you have once confided."

She averted her head, and shook it mournfully. A tear fell on his hand. Louis's soul was on his lips, as he kissed away that tear. The Countess covered her face, and almost sobbed. He had now no remembrance of any thing but herself. She was agitated, even distressed; and he was the cause! He attempted to speak, but emotion prevented his utterance; he trembled, and grasped her hand; she felt the strong pulsation of his heart against her knee, and softly murmured,--"This Embassador arrives--and you will go!" She interrupted herself, and attempting to rise, exclaimed in disorder, "Oh, that I had never listened to our last conference!"

Louis detained her on her seat. He must have been dull as the iron rock, and hard as its material, had he hesitated to understand and to reply to this agitation, this language. But words were inadequate to express the sympathy which seemed to dissolve all his faculties in the one feeling of unutterable love. He could only kneel at her feet, and clasp the hand he had detained, to his throbbing eyes.

Her exulting heart believed itself now near the gaol of all its winding movements: a positive declaration of his love, and an unequivocal solicitation of her hand, in veritable words! Another step, and this bond of honour would be her's. But she did not permit the triumph of her thoughts to rise upon the managed scene of her countenance; all there was retreating softness: yet, allowing her arm to drop, as if unconsciously on his shoulder, with the sweet familiarity of perfect confidence, she gently said, "and may I believe that you love me well enough, to make me your's, in spite of the world's harsh prejudice against a birth that was not noble? Can you be determined to bear me up against that world? For she who is the favourite of the Empress has many enemies; and when she is known to be beloved by you, she will have many more.--Ah, Chevalier, against all this, may I believe that you will be true?"

This demand, though put with all the force of exquisite tenderness, giving itself without reserve to the fidelity of implied attachment, contained words that recalled Louis from the delirium of passion, and made him ask himself, how _true_ he had kept his engagement with Ignatius? How _true_ he had maintained his _determination_ to preserve his duty to his father? since he was even now on the point of dishonouring both, by uttering the very vow against which he had been so solemnly enjoined!

Shocked at the oblivion in which all memory of his duty had lain for the last half-hour, and indignant with himself, that his consequent discovery of a more than reciprocal passion, had betrayed the Countess to the last decisive question, he started from his knees, and said in a hurried voice, "I dare not answer you as my heart would dictate, most lovely, most beloved of women!--I am not my own.--In pity then--in honour--allow my lips to be silent for a time."

She hastily rose from her chair.--"I do not understand you, Chevalier!"

He thought he had wounded her delicacy and her love, and with encreased agitation, he exclaimed, "Despise my weakness, my apparent indecision, but do not doubt my heart! do not doubt the honour, that would sooner immolate that heart's dearest wishes, than make them all its own by a breach of positive duty."

What was now passing in her mind, he could only guess, by the quick heaving of her bosom; for she covered her face with one hand, while she attempted to shake off the fond grasp with which he clung to the other.

"You do doubt me?" cried he.

"You are mysterious; and I have no alternative."

"Oh," repeated he, "does the friend of the Empress Elizabeth, the confident of statesmen! does she doubt the honour of mystery?"

The Countess smiled, and no longer struggling to release her hand, turned on him a look of perfect re-assurance. But what she would have said, the enchanted heart of Louis could only translate by its own vivid imaginations; for the door of the interior apartment opened, and the Empress and her counsellor reappeared.

The Countess, in a beautiful disorder of smiles and blushes, moved forward to meet Her Majesty; and Louis, bowing to her advancing step, remained where his Circe had left him. The Empress entered, as she had departed, full of animation; and without appearing to observe that any thing particular had passed between her favourite and the young secretary, she proceeded to speak of the letters she had just been reading; one from the Queen of Spain, and the other from Ripperda himself. She turned to Louis with a peculiar smile; "Chevalier," said she, "I must be your patroness with this great man. If you have any suit to proffer, trust it with me."