Читать книгу Mr. Misfortunate - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 6

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These words, delivered in a tone calmly sad, pressed hardly on the ardent heart of Charles.

But too surely they pierced the cloud of happy illusions with which he had endeavoured to delude himself, and revealed to him the barren prospects he had so valiantly endeavoured to hide from himself. But he would not one jot change his haughty and confident demeanour.

'Louis can never break the treaty of Fontainebleau,' he declared. 'It would be a betrayal, sir, a betrayal!'

The Earl Marischal was silent.

'I am sorry, sir,' added Charles with a slight quiver in his voice, that you think my cause so hopeless.'

He knew that it was greatly to his interest to gain the support of this man, who had meant so much and might mean so much more to his family, and what appeared to him the Earl's lukewarmness affected him with a desperate vexation. He felt himself alone, with even his father and his father's friends against him.

George Keith read his mind perfectly, but in sincerity could find nothing with which to reassure him; he had no longer much faith in the Jacobite cause and still less in Prince Charles, who seemed to his wise experience but a rash young hero of romance.

'What do you then advise me to do?' asked the Prince after a moment's reflection, and in a hostile tone.

'Return to Rome,' answered the Earl at once,' and there wait a more favourable opportunity for another attempt—this is the wish of your father, who has been most unhappy since you left Italy and who would forgo anything for the pleasure of seeing your Highness again—it is also the desire of the majority of your followers.'

Charles sat immobile. All his being recoiled from returning to the dreary life in the Palazzo Sant' Apostoli; he was made for adventure, for action, for excitement, he could not force himself into an attitude of resignation, nor stifle his spirit into the walls of the house his father called home.

'Henry, of course, wishes to return,' he remarked at length. 'Henry was half-hearted from the beginning.'

'The Duke is happier in Rome than in Paris,' replied the Earl, 'nor can I believe that your Highness really cares for the dissipations of this careless city.'

'I care for nothing,' said Charles fiercely, 'but keeping Louis to his promise. Is it possible, sir, that you do not see my position? If I give up now I betray those who died for me—those who are ruined for my sake—do you not see that?'

The Earl Marischal saw another thing and saw it clearly; 'If you are of so chivalrous a temper,' he thought, 'why did you not die too? Why did not you share the fate of those who fell at Culloden Muir?'

The Prince continued hotly.

'Do you think that I, sir, at my age, with my temper, can be content to skulk in Italy with priests fox company?'

'I said but "wait,"' remarked the Earl with his quiet demeanour and gentle insistence.

'We have waited too long—we have been waiting over fifty years now—does his Majesty's patience, his endless letters, his underground intriguing help at all?'

The Earl Marischal tried another line of argument.

'Consider, sir, what your position would be if you angered France, forced her to break with you, to close all hope for the future, to forbid you her realm? What would you do, where would you go?'

Charles would not be daunted even by this prospect. 'My name and my sword have some weight in Europe,' he said, with a dignity that was not without pathos, 'and I shall always have the loyalty of some devoted gentlemen.'

'All of which will avail you little, sir, without the help of France—the Pope alone can do nothing but offer you some paltry pension, and a close connection with the Pope is fatal to your chance in England,' replied the Earl sadly; 'and without the protection of France you become but a wanderer—a desperate adventurer.'

Charles glanced at the serene and noble face of the speaker, and his own bright countenance was clouded by dismay; this prospect held before him was indeed terrible, he foresaw himself in the most miserable position a man of his spirit could occupy.

George Keith saw his advantage and followed it up.

'Whereas if you retire, sir, with dignity and prudence you will oblige France, please his Majesty and your subjects, and always be again able to demand the help of Louis on some favourable occasion.'

Charles remained mutely obstinate. The portion that wisdom offered to him was more hateful to him than any other prospect could be—even more hateful than that of becoming a proscribed wanderer, with which the Earl Marischal had just alarmed him.

The old Jacobite continued his warning to the heir of a cause that he had served so well.

'I would have your Highness remember that once you lose the asylum of France you become the target for all the spies and assassins of Hanover who dare not touch you now, nor in Rome—your life would be as miserable as it lately was in the Isles and without the consolation of faithful friends about you. No State would dare to offer you protection, no prince would give you the affiance, so necessary to you, of some well-dowered royal lady—and you would be without money, sir.'

George Keith paused a moment, then added,—

'Believe me, sir, that is the greatest misery of all to one of a generous temper—there is no humiliation so bitter, no vexation so enduring, no restriction so fretting as continual lack of money.'

The thirty years exile spoke from an experience which, though it had not left his rare nature soured, had been bitter in the extreme.

Charles could find no reply; he only knew that no argument could induce him to return to the fruitless life of Rome.

The Earl Marischal perceiving this, and knowing that he had exhausted his whole stock of arguments, prepared to take his leave.

He felt more than ever detached from the Jacobite quarrel, which had become so opposite to his character and mood, and still further drawn to that life of tranquil security and philosophic calm which lay open to him in the service of the King of Prussia.

Charles saw his intent of leaving and stopped him with the agitation of one who will not contend alone with his own conflicting passions.

'My God, sir,' he cried, rising from his seat by the dark table, 'do you really think it possible that France will abandon me?'

'Most probable, sir.'

'I will put the thing to the issue,' replied the Prince in stormy anger. 'I will force King Louis to show his hand plainly—I will shame him before all Europe to keep his word—sir, I regret to disturb one so trusted by my father, but I will not leave Paris.'

The Earl bowed.

'You will see,' added Charles, as if endeavouring to give an air of prudence to his resolve, 'that Lochiel and Ewing, Lochgarry and Macdonnell are of my persuasion.'

'These gentlemen are very loyal,' returned the Earl as gravely as sweetly, 'but their advice will be the advice of ruined men, who have nothing to lose.'

'And what have I to lose?' asked the Prince recklessly facing the older man with his brown eyes dark with anguish and challenge.

'The chances of the future,' replied the Earl with a graceful readiness that hid his disbelief in any future and any chances for the House of Stewart.

'Trust me with them, sir.' said the Prince, still in that same gallant attitude of brave defiance. 'I shall not jeopardise my heritage.'

The Earl Marischal smiled gently and even with a certain tenderness.

'Permit me to take my leave, sir.'

'You do not love me, Earl Marischal,' said Charles, 'and have thought little of me since I asked you to embark in the herring boat two years ago—but I—if I am more fortunate than you should dream—will remember your great services to my house.'

With which flourish and a royal gesture Charles dismissed the unwelcome counsellor and soothed his own pride.

But when he was alone, when the door had closed with a certain air of finality on one whom he knew to be at least a faithful friend, a wave of melancholy swept over his young, impetuous heart.

He thought of his truly precarious position, and how this house, his pension, his servants, his very clothes, and the money in his pocket might melt away like fairy gold which, gleaming over-night, is but withered leaves in the morning.

Everything depended on France.

Even if he took the Earl Marischal's advice and retired to Rome he would still have to be a pensioner on King Louis or the Pope.

He had nothing to depend on unless it was doubtful help from Spain or from the impoverished Jacobites in England.

And on the other hand he had responsibilities; the gentlemen who had accompanied him in his flight from Scotland, and those who had preceded him on the voyage to Nantes, on which the Duke of Perth had died, all looked to him for a livelihood and protection.

And there was Henry to be provided for; James, he knew, could help no one; he had himself lived on charity and his wife's dowry all his days, and his greatest asset, Clementina Sobieski's Polish jewels, had been pledged for Charles's recent expedition.

Any way the Prince looked he saw himself obliged to ask for help, to sue for favour...to one of his temperament it seemed far preferable to ask for an army than to sue for a small pension, to demand help, as from one prince to another, than to supplicate alms as a hopeless adventurer.

He was not as deceived by the caresses of the Court nor as dazzled by his great popularity in Paris as the Earl Marischal had imagined, but he did cherish a deep belief in his own fortunes, and he relied, with the frankness of a generous nature, on the pledges of France. And, deep in his heart, he guarded another hope: that which had inspired him to the audacious toast of the shieling above Loch Ericht—'The black eyes—The King's daughter...'

The door opened softly and Prince Henry entered; it was near three o'clock, the dinner hour, he remarked with a glance at Charles's unchanged dress.

Charles looked at him with but little kindness: affectionate towards each other as they once had been, they now pulled apart on almost every subject, and the elder suspected the younger of being too much in the confidence of the old King in Rome and something of a spy on his own movements.

'I hope you have listened to the Earl Marischal,' said Henry, turning his demure, placid face towards his brother.

He had the same girlish complexion as Charles, the same length of face and full under-lip, and there the likeness ended.

The Prince stared past him out of the window.

'Henry,' he replied with his dangerous frankness, 'I am not returning to Rome.'

The Duke was keenly disappointed.

Then I think you fail in duty to his Majesty!' he cried, 'whose every letter is full of "his dearest Carluccio" and pressing the matter of your return.'

'I will never return,' repeated Charles, 'while there is the least hope of France.'

Henry looked dismal.

'Cannot you see that they are fooling us? I have had a longer experience than you of the Court of France. All flattery and corruption, and deceit and horrid atheism.'

He spoke in Italian, the language with which, despite his English tutors, he was most familiar, and Charles replied with vivacity in the same tongue.

'What does it matter about their atheism? You are too priest-ridden, Henry—you think more of the Church of Rome than of the throne of England.'

Henry's face, always rather obstinate in expression, hardened.

'Do you know,' pursued Charles with force and some bitterness, 'that if I had attended the Protestant service in Edinburgh I might be in London now? Do you not know that it is only the Popish faith that is keeping us out of our rights? The House of Hanover would not stand a moment were I to declare myself a member of the Church of England.'

'But you were not tempted,' said the Duke anxiously. 'God be thanked! You would not break your father's heart that way!'

The Prince laughed defiantly.

'Henri Quatre thought Paris worth a mass, did he not? I think of that every time I pass his statue on the Pont Neuf.'

The Duke, who had inherited the almost fanatical bigotry of his grandfather and father as well as the sincere and lofty piety of his mother, was distressed at this talk and irritated by the reckless demeanour of the Prince.

'You were always suspected of this,' he said sharply.

Charles looked straight at him.

'Henry, what do you mean to do?' he demanded quietly.

The Duke glanced away.

'Are you with me or against me?' continued the Prince.

'Against you, Carluccio!'

'Sometimes I have thought so.'

'I am against some of your wilful plans, some of your rash friends—'

'Who are my rash friends?'

'I mean Lochiel and the other Scotsmen, and I do not like Kelly, your secretary.'

'You always were half-hearted,' replied Charles contemptuously. 'No wonder that you could not persuade Louis to help me when you thought the whole thing a piece of folly yourself.'

Henry flushed. He really had laboured hard against the grain, and conscious of mediocre capacities, in his brother's cause, and had felt keenly enough his insidious and slightly humiliating position.

'Why should we continue to be beggars and supplicants, hangers-on of a foreign Court?' he asked; 'let us, dear Carluccio, give up these chimeras and choose some career in which we can be independent.'

'There is but one career possible to us: that of arms,' said Charles. 'And I do not yet feel reduced to sell my sword—even saying'—he added cynically—'that there was any one disposed to buy it.'

Henry looked uneasy, as if he had something to say that he did not dare utter.

'I wish you could see how hopeless it all is,' he replied feebly, 'and think of all the misery and bloodshed this plotting involves!'

At that the Prince winced. He was the most tenderhearted of men despite his obstinacy and his strain of wild fierceness, and the bloody scaffolds in London, and the bloody moors in Scotland, often haunted his day-dreams and disturbed his sleep.

'The things you quote to hold me back but push me forward,' he answered. 'It is useless for you to repeat to me the Earl's advices and reproofs.'

'It is a pity,' replied the young Duke, who had his brother's obstinacy without his sensitiveness, 'that we cannot understand each other better.'

'I do not understand you at all,' said the Prince, 'unless you merely wish for a life of ease and comfort and to forfeit all ambition for a dull and safe obscurity.'

'Ah, Carluccio!' murmured Henry. He could say no more, for the maître d'hôtel opened the door to announce, 'His Royal Highness is served.'

Charles in his sumptuous and slightly untidy splendour and Henry in his neat black, cut in the Italian mode and rather like the suit of an abbé, with a little cloak at the shoulder and plain lawn at his throat, went together to the great dining-room, azure and gilt-painted and carved.

Charles thought of the shieling by Loch Ericht—of the meals of dried fish and the messes he had himself cooked over difficult peat fires...in the midst of this grandeur that was not his own, he thought wistfully of those wild, free days, of the space and the fresh air and all the exercises his hardy body loved.

Sooner that again, he thought, than this sort of life for ever, his very meat paid for by compassion, the very lackeys serving it knowing so.

The post had brought him two letters. One was from the sad old man in Rome, beseeching his 'dearest Carluccio' to return to the only place the exiles could call home.

Charles thrust it half-read in his pocket and looked at the other.

Henry peered over his shoulder.

Both knew the smooth parchment, the exotic perfume, the elaborate seal of the arms of France—the most powerful person in France had written to the Prince.

Henry, despite his dismal forebodings, felt hope revive, and flushed with pleasure.

'It is from Madame de Pompadour!' he whispered in excitement.

Charles tore the letter in four and cast it down under his chair, in full sight of the lackeys.

'The Queen is our mother's relation and was her dear friend,' he said.