CHAPTER X
“That Lord L’Estrange seems a very good fellow.”
“So-so; an effeminate humourist,—says the most absurd things, and fancies them wise. Never mind him. You wanted to speak to me, Frank?”
“Yes; I am so obliged to you for introducing me to Levy. I must tell you how handsomely he has behaved.”
“Stop; allow me to remind you that I did not introduce you to Levy; you had met him before at Borrowell’s, if I recollect right, and he dined with us at the Clarendon,—that is all I had to do with bringing you together. Indeed I rather cautioned you against him than not. Pray don’t think I introduced you to a man who, however pleasant and perhaps honest, is still a money-lender. Your father would be justly angry with me if I had done so.”
“Oh, pooh! you are prejudiced against poor Levy. But just hear: I was sitting very ruefully, thinking over those cursed bills, and how the deuce I should renew them, when Levy walked into my rooms; and after telling me of his long friendship for my uncle Egerton and his admiration for yourself, and (give me your hand, Randal) saying how touched he felt by your kind sympathy in my troubles, he opened his pocket-book, and showed me the bills safe and sound in his own possession.”
“How?”
“He had bought them up. ‘It must be so disagreeable to me,’ he said, ‘to have them flying about the London moneymarket, and those Jews would be sure sooner or later to apply to my father. And now,’ added Levy, ‘I am in no immediate hurry for the money, and we must put the interest upon fairer terms.’ In short, nothing could be more liberal than his tone. And he says, he is thinking of a way to relieve me altogether, and will call about it in a few days, when his plan is matured. After all, I must owe this to you, Randal. I dare swear you put it into his head.”
“Oh, no, indeed! On the contrary, I still say, Be cautious in all your dealings with Levy. I don’t know, I ‘m sure, what he means to propose. Have you heard from the Hall lately?”
“Yes, to-day. Only think—the Riccaboccas have disappeared. My mother writes me word of it,—a very odd letter. She seems to suspect that I know where they are, and reproaches me for ‘mystery’—quite enigmatical. But there is one sentence in her letter—see, here it is in the postscript—which seems to refer to Beatrice: ‘I don’t ask you to tell me your secrets, Frank, but Randal will no doubt have assured you that my first consideration will be for your own happiness, in any matter in which your heart is really engaged.’”
“Yes,” said Randal, slowly; “no doubt this refers to Beatrice; but, as I told you, your mother will not interfere one way or the other,—such interference would weaken her influence with the squire. Besides, as she said, she can’t wish, you to marry a foreigner; though once married, she would—But how do you stand now with the marchesa? Has she consented to accept you?”
“Not quite; indeed I have not actually proposed. Her manner, though much softened, has not so far emboldened me; and, besides, before a positive declaration, I certainly must go down to the Hall and speak at least to my mother.”
“You must judge for yourself, but don’t do anything rash: talk first to me. Here we are at my office. Good-by; and—and pray believe that, in whatever you do with Levy, I have no hand in it.”
CHAPTER XI
Towards the evening, Randal was riding fast on the road to Norwood. The arrival of Harley, and the conversation that had passed between that nobleman and Randal, made the latter anxious to ascertain how far Riccabocca was likely to learn L’Estrange’s return to England, and to meet with him. For he felt that, should the latter come to know that Riccabocca, in his movements, had gone by Randal’s advice. Harley would find that Randal had spoken to him disingenuously; and on the other hand, Riccabocca, placed under the friendly protection of Lord L’Estrange, would no longer need Randal Leslie to defend him from the machinations of Peschiera. To a reader happily unaccustomed to dive into the deep and mazy recesses of a schemer’s mind, it might seem that Randal’s interest in retaining a hold over the exile’s confidence would terminate with the assurances that had reached him, from more than one quarter, that Violante might cease to be an heiress if she married himself. “But perhaps,” suggests some candid and youthful conjecturer,—“perhaps Randal Leslie is in love with this fair creature?” Randal in love!—no! He was too absorbed by harder passions for that blissful folly. Nor, if he could have fallen in love, was Violante the one to attract that sullen, secret heart; her instinctive nobleness, the very stateliness of her beauty, womanlike though it was, awed him. Men of that kind may love some soft slave,—they cannot lift their eyes to a queen. They may look down,—they cannot lookup. But on the one hand, Randal could not resign altogether the chance of securing a fortune that would realize his most dazzling dreams, upon the mere assurance, however probable, which had so dismayed him; and on the other hand, should he be compelled to relinquish all idea of such alliance, though he did not contemplate the base perfidy of actually assisting Peschiera’s avowed designs, still, if Frank’s marriage with Beatrice should absolutely depend upon her brother’s obtaining the knowledge of Violante’s retreat, and that marriage should be as conducive to his interests as he thought he could make it, why—he did not then push his deductions further, even to himself,—they seemed too black; but he sighed heavily, and that sigh foreboded how weak would be honour and virtue against avarice and ambition. Therefore, on all accounts, Riccabocca was one of those cards in a sequence, which so calculating a player would not throw out of his hand: it might serve for repique, at the worst it might score well in the game. Intimacy with the Italian was still part and parcel in that knowledge which was the synonym of power.
While the young man was thus meditating, on his road to Norwood, Riccabocca and his Jemima were close conferring in their drawing-room. And if you could have seen them, reader, you would have been seized with equal surprise and curiosity: for some extraordinary communication had certainly passed between them. Riccabocca was evidently much agitated, and with emotions not familiar to him. The tears stood in his eyes at the same time that a smile, the reverse of cynical or sardonic, curved his lips; while his wife was leaning her head on his shoulder, her hand clasped in his, and, by the expression of her face, you might guess that he had paid her some very gratifying compliment, of a nature more genuine and sincere than those which characterized his habitual hollow and dissimulating gallantry. But just at this moment Giacomo entered, and Jemima, with her native English modesty, withdrew in haste from Riccabocca’s sheltering side.
“Padrone,” said Giacomo, who, whatever his astonishment at the connubial position he had disturbed, was much too discreet to betray it,—“Padrone, I see the young Englishman riding towards the house, and I hope, when he arrives, you will not forget the alarming information I gave to you this morning.”
“Ah, ah!” said Riccabocca, his face falling. “If the signorina were but married!”
“My very thought,—my constant thought!” exclaimed Riccabocca. “And you really believe the young Englishman loves her?”
“Why else should he come, Excellency?” asked Giacomo, with great naivete.
“Very true; why, indeed?” said Riccabocca. “Jemima, I cannot endure the terrors I suffer on that poor child’s account. I will open myself frankly to Randal Leslie. And now, too, that which might have been a serious consideration, in case I return to Italy, will no longer stand in our way, Jemima.”
Jemima smiled faintly, and whispered something to Riccabocca, to which he replied,
“Nonsense, anima mia. I know it will be,—have not a doubt of it. I tell you it is as nine to four, according to the nicest calculations. I will speak at once to Randal. He is too young, too timid to speak himself.”
“Certainly,” interposed Giacomo; “how could he dare to speak, let him love ever so well?”
Jemima shook her head.
“Oh, never fear,” said Riccabocca, observing this gesture; “I will give him the trial. If he entertain but mercenary views, I shall soon detect them. I know human nature pretty well, I think, my love; and, Giacomo, just get me my Machiavelli;—that’s right. Now leave me, my dear; I must reflect and prepare myself.”
When Randal entered the house, Giacomo, with a smile of peculiar suavity, ushered him into the drawing-room. He found Riccabocca alone, and seated before the fireplace, leaning his face on his hand, with the great folio of Machiavelli lying open on the table.
The Italian received him as courteously as usual; but there was in his manner a certain serious and thoughtful dignity, which was perhaps the more imposing, because but rarely assumed. After a few preliminary observations, Randal remarked that Frank Hazeldean had informed him of the curiosity which the disappearance of the Riccaboccas had excited at the Hall, and inquired carelessly if the doctor had left instructions as to the forwarding of any letters that might be directed to him at the Casino.
“Letters!” said Riccabocca, simply; “I never receive any; or, at least, so rarely, that it was not worth while to take an event so little to be expected into consideration. No; if any letters do reach the Casino, there they will wait.”
“Then I can see no possibility of indiscretion; no chance of a clew to your address.”
“Nor I either.”
Satisfied so far, and knowing that it was not in Riecabocca’s habits to read the newspapers, by which he might otherwise have learned of L’Estrange’s arrival in London, Randal then proceeded to inquire, with much seeming interest, into the health of Violante,—hoped it did not suffer by confinement, etc. Riccabocca eyed him gravely while he spoke, and then suddenly rising, that air of dignity to which I have before referred became yet more striking.
“My young friend,” said he, “hear me attentively, and answer me frankly. I know human nature—” Here a slight smile of proud complacency passed the sage’s lips, and his eye glanced towards his Machiavelli.
“I know human nature,—at least I have studied it,” he renewed more earnestly, and with less evident self-conceit; “and I believe that when a perfect stranger to me exhibits an interest in my affairs, which occasions him no small trouble,—an interest,” continued the wise man, laying his hand on Randal’s shoulder, “which scarcely a son could exceed, he must be under the influence of some strong personal motive.”
“Oh, sir!” cried Randal, turning a shade more pale, and with a faltering tone. Riccabocca, surveyed him with the tenderness of a superior being, and pursued his deductive theories.
“In your case, what is that motive? Not political; for I conclude you share the opinions of your government, and those opinions have not favoured mine. Not that of pecuniary or ambitious calculations; for how can such calculations enlist you on behalf of a ruined exile? What remains? Why, the motive which at your age is ever the most natural and the strongest. I don’t blame you. Machiavelli himself allows that such a motive has swayed the wisest minds, and overturned the most solid States. In a word, young man, you are in love, and with my daughter Violante.”
Randal was so startled by this direct and unexpected charge upon his own masked batteries, that he did not even attempt his defence. His head drooped on his breast, and he remained speechless.
“I do not doubt,” resumed the penetrating judge of human nature, “that you would have been withheld by the laudable and generous scruples which characterize your happy age, from voluntarily disclosing to me the state of your heart. You might suppose that, proud of the position I once held, or sanguine in the hope of regaining my inheritance, I might be over-ambitious in my matrimonial views for Violante; or that you, anticipating my restoration to honours and fortune, might seem actuated by the last motives which influence love and youth; and, therefore, my dear young friend, I have departed from the ordinary custom in England, and adopted a very common one in my own country. With us, a suitor seldom presents himself till he is assured of the consent of a father. I have only to say this,—if I am right, and you love my daughter, my first object in life is to see her safe and secure; and, in a word—you understand me.”
Now, mightily may it comfort and console us ordinary mortals, who advance no pretence to superior wisdom and ability, to see the huge mistakes made by both these very sagacious personages,—Dr. Riccabocca, valuing himself on his profound acquaintance with character, and Randal Leslie, accustomed to grope into every hole and corner of thought and action, wherefrom to extract that knowledge which is power! For whereas the sage, judging not only by his own heart in youth, but by the general influence of the master passion on the young, had ascribed to Randal sentiments wholly foreign to that able diplomatist’s nature, so no sooner had Riccabocca brought his speech to a close, than Randal, judging also by his own heart, and by the general laws which influence men of the mature age and boasted worldly wisdom of the pupil of Machiavelli, instantly decided that Riccabocca presumed upon his youth and inexperience, and meant most nefariously to take him in.
“The poor youth!” thought Riccabocca, “how unprepared he is for the happiness I give him!”
“The cunning old Jesuit!” thought Randal; “he has certainly learned, since we met last, that he has no chance of regaining his patrimony, and so he wants to impose on me the hand of a girl without a shilling. What other motive can he possibly have? Had his daughter the remotest probability of becoming the greatest heiress in Italy, would he dream of bestowing her on me in this off-hand way? The thing stands to reason.”
Actuated by his resentment at the trap thus laid for him, Randal was about to disclaim altogether the disinterested and absurd affection laid to his charge, when it occurred to him that, by so doing, he might mortally offend the Italian, since the cunning never forgive those who refuse to be duped by them,—and it might still be conducive to his interest to preserve intimate and familiar terms with Riccabocca; therefore, subduing his first impulse, he exclaimed,
“Oh, too generous man! pardon me if I have so long been unable to express my amaze, my gratitude; but I cannot—no, I cannot, while your prospects remain thus uncertain, avail myself of your—of your inconsiderate magnanimity. Your rare conduct can only redouble my own scruples, if you, as I firmly hope and believe, are restored to your great possessions—you would naturally look so much higher than me. Should these hopes fail, then, indeed, it may be different; yet even then, what position, what fortune, have I to offer to your daughter worthy of her?”
“You are well born! all gentlemen are equals,” said Riccabocca, with a sort of easy nobleness. “You have youth, information, talent,—sources of certain wealth in this happy country,—powerful connections; and, in fine, if you are satisfied with marrying for love, I shall be contented; if not, speak openly. As to the restoration to my possessions, I can scarcely think that probable while my enemy lives. And even in that case, since I saw you last, something has occurred,” added Riccabocca, with a strange smile, which seemed to Randal singularly sinister and malignant, “that may remove all difficulties. Meanwhile, do not think me so extravagantly magnanimous; do not underrate the satisfaction I must feel at knowing Violante safe from the designs of Peschiera,—safe, and forever, under a husband’s roof. I will tell you an Italian proverb,—it contains a truth full of wisdom and terror,
“‘Hai cinquanta Amici?—non basta. Hai un Nemico?—e troppo.’” [“Have you fifty friends?—it is not enough. Have you one enemy?—it is too much.”]
“Something has occurred!” echoed Randal, not heeding the conclusion of this speech, and scarcely hearing the proverb, which the sage delivered in his most emphatic and tragic tone. “Something has occurred! My dear friend, be plainer. What has occurred?” Riccabocca remained silent. “Something that induces you to bestow your daughter on me?” Riccabocca nodded, and emitted a low chuckle.
“The very laugh of a fiend,” muttered Randal. “Something that makes her not worth bestowing. He betrays himself. Cunning people always do.”
“Pardon me,” said the Italian, at last, “if I don’t answer your question; you will know later; but at present this is a family secret. And now I must turn to another and more alarming cause for my frankness to you.” Here Riccabocca’s face changed, and assumed an expression of mingled rage and fear. “You must know,” he added, sinking his voice, “that Giacomo has seen a strange person loitering about the house, and looking up at the windows; and he has no doubt—nor have I—that this is some spy or emissary of Peschiera’s.”
“Impossible; how could he discover you?”
“I know not; but no one else has any interest in doing so. The man kept at a distance, and Giacomo could not see his face.”
“It may be but a mere idler. Is this all?”
“No; the old woman who serves us said that she was asked at a shop ‘if we were not Italians’?”
“And she answered?”
“‘No;’ but owned that ‘we had a foreign servant, Giacomo.’”
“I will see to this. Rely on it that if Peschiera has discovered you, I will learn it. Nay, I will hasten from you in order to commence inquiry.”
“I cannot detain you. May I think that we have now an interest in common?”
“Oh, indeed yes; but—but—your daughter! How can I dream that one so beautiful, so peerless, will confirm the hope you have extended to me?”
“The daughter of an Italian is brought up to consider that it is a father’s right to dispose of her hand.”
“But the heart?”
“Cospetto!” said the Italian, true to his infamous notions as to the sex, “the heart of a girl is like a convent,—the holier the cloister, the more charitable the door.”
CHAPTER XII
Randal had scarcely left the house before Mrs. Riccabocca, who was affectionately anxious in all that concerned Violante, rejoined her husband.
“I like the young man very well,” said the sage,—“very well indeed. I find him just what I expected, from my general knowledge of human nature; for as love ordinarily goes with youth, so modesty usually accompanies talent. He is young, ergo, he is in love; he has talent, ergo, he is modest, modest and ingenuous.”
“And you think not in any way swayed by interest in his affections?”
“Quite the contrary; and to prove him the more, I have not said a word as to the worldly advantages which, in any case, would accrue to him from an alliance with my daughter. In any case: for if I regain my country, her fortune is assured; and if not, I trust” (said the poor exile, lifting his brow with stately and becoming pride) “that I am too well aware of my child’s dignity, as well as my own, to ask any one to marry her to his own worldly injury.”
“Eh! I don’t quite understand you, Alphonso. To be sure, your dear life is insured for her marriage portion; but—”
“Pazzie-stuff!” said Riccabocca, petulantly; “her marriage portion would be as nothing to a young man of Randal’s birth and prospects. I think not of that. But listen: I have never consented to profit by Harley L’Estrange’s friendship for me; my scruples would not extend to my son-in-law. This noble friend has not only high rank, but considerable influence,—influence with the government, influence with Randal’s patron, who, between ourselves, does not seem to push the young man as he might do; I judge by what Randal says. I should write, therefore, before anything was settled, to L’Estrange, and I should say to him simply, ‘I never asked you to save me from penury, but I do ask you to save a daughter of my House from humiliation. I can give to her no dowry; can her husband owe to my friend that advance in an honourable career, that opening to energy and talent, which is more than a dowry to generous ambition?’”
“Oh, it is in vain you would disguise your rank,” cried Jemima, with enthusiasm; “it speaks in all you utter, when your passions are moved.”
The Italian did not seem flattered by that eulogy. “Pish,” said he, “there you are! rank again!”
But Jemima was right. There was something about her husband that was grandiose and princely, whenever he escaped from his accursed Machiavelli, and gave fair play to his heart.
And he spent the next hour or so in thinking over all that he could do for Randal, and devising for his intended son-in-law the agreeable surprise, which Randal was at that very time racking his yet cleverer brains to disappoint.
These plans conned sufficiently, Riccabocca shut up his Machiavelli, and hunted out of his scanty collection of books, Buffon on Man, and various other psychological volumes, in which he soon became deeply absorbed. Why were these works the object of the sage’s study? Perhaps he will let us know soon, for it is clearly a secret known to his wife; and though she has hitherto kept one secret, that is precisely the reason why Riccabocca would not wish long to overburden her discretion with another.