Читать книгу Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier - Charles James Lever - Страница 7

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In a large and splendid chamber, whose only light was a small lamp within a globe of alabaster, Charles Edward lay, full-dressed, upon his bed. His eyes were closed, but his features did not betoken sleep: on the contrary, his flushed cheek told of intemperance, and the table, covered with wine-decanters and glasses, beside him, confirmed the impression. His breathing was thick and laboured, and occasionally broken by a dry, short cough. There was, indeed, little to remind one of the handsome chevalier in the bloated face, the heavy, hanging jaws, and the ungainly figure of him who, looking far older than his real age, now lay there. Though dressed with peculiar care, and covered with the insignia of several orders, his embroidered vest was unbuttoned, and showed the rich lace of his jabot, stained and discoloured by wine. A splendidly ornamented sword lay beside him, on which one hand rested, the fingers tremulously touching the richly embossed hilt. Near the foot of the bed, on a low, well-cushioned chair, sat another figure, whose easy air of jocularity and good-humoured, sensual countenance presented a strong contrast to the careworn expression of the Prince’s face. Dressed in a long loose robe of white cloth, which he wore not ungracefully, his well-rounded legs crossed negligently in front of him, and his hands clasped with an air of quiet and happy composure, the man was a perfect picture of a jolly friar, well-to-do and contented. This was George Kelly, the very type of happy, self-satisfied sensuality. If a phrenologist would have augured favourably from the noble development of forehead and temples, the massive back-head and widely spreading occiput would have quickly shown that nature had alloyed every good gift with a counterpoise of low tastes and bad passions, more than enough to destroy the balance of character.

‘Who ‘s there? Who ‘s in waiting?’ muttered the Prince, half aloud, as if suddenly arousing himself.

‘Kelly—only Kelly,’ answered the friar. ‘Then the wine is not finished, George, eh? that’s certain; the decanters are not empty. What hour is it?’ ‘As well as I can see, it wants a few minutes of five.’

‘Of five! of five! Night or morning, which?’

‘Five in the evening. I believe one might venture to call it night, for they’re lighting the lamps in the streets already.’

‘What’s this here for, George,’ said the Prince, lifting up the sword. ‘We’re not going to Bannockburn, are we? Egad! if we be, I trust they ‘ll give me a better weapon. What nonsense of yours is all this?’

‘Don’t you remember it was your Majesty’s birthday, and that you dressed to receive the ministers?’

‘To be sure I do; and we did receive them, George, didn’t we? Have I not been drinking loyal toasts to every monarchy of Europe, and wishing well to those who need it not? Fifty-one, or fifty-two, which are we, George?’

‘Faith, I forget,’ said Kelly carelessly; ‘but, like this Burgundy, quite old enough to be better.’

‘The reproach comes well from you, you old reprobate! Whose counsels have made me what I am? Bolingbroke warned me against you many a long year back. Atterbury knew you too, and told me what you were. By Heaven!’ cried he, with a wilder energy, ‘it was that very spirit of dictation, that habit of prescribing to me whom to know, where to lean, what to say, and what to leave unsaid, has made me so rash and headstrong through life. A fellow of your caste had otherwise obtained no hold upon me; a lowbred, illiterate drunkard——’

A hearty burst of laughter from Kelly here stopped the speaker, who seemed actually overwhelmed by the cool insolence of the friar.

‘Leave me, sir; leave the room!’ cried Charles Edward haughtily. ‘Let Lord Nairn—no, not him; let Murray of Blair, or Kinloch, attend me.’

Kelly never stirred nor uttered a word, but sat calm and motionless, while Charles, breathing heavily from his recent outburst of passion, lay back, half-exhausted, on the bed. After a few minutes he stretched out his hand and caught his wine-glass; it was empty, and Kelly filled it.

‘I say, George,’ cried he, after a pause, ‘it must be growing late. Shall we not have these people coming to our levee soon?’

‘They ‘ve come and gone, sire, six hours ago. I would not permit your Majesty to be disturbed for such a pack of falsehearted sycophants; the more that they sent such insolent messages, demanding as a right to be received, and asking how long they were to wait your royal pleasure.’

‘Did they so, George? Is this true?’

‘True as Gospel. That Spaniard, with the red-brown beard, came even to your Majesty’s antechamber, and spoke so loud I thought he’d have awoke you’; nor was Count Boyor much better-mannered——’

‘Come and gone!’ broke in Charles. ‘What falsehoods will grow out of this! You should have told me, Kelly. Health, ease, happiness—I ‘d have sacrificed all to duty. Ay, George, kings have duties like other men. Were there many here?’

‘I never saw one-half the number. The carriages filled the Corso to the Piazza del Popolo. There was not a minister absent.’

‘And of our own people?’

‘They were all here. O’Sullivan, Barra, Clangavin——’

‘Where was Tullybardine?—Ah! I forgot,’ broke in Charles, with a deep sigh. ‘“Here’s to them that are gone,” George, as the old song says. Did they seem dissatisfied at my absence?—how did you explain it?’

‘I said your Majesty was indisposed; that State affairs had occupied you all the preceding night, and that you had at last fallen into a slumber.’

‘Was Glengariff among them?’

‘You forget, sire. We buried him six weeks ago.’

‘To be sure we did. Show me that glass, George—no, the looking-glass, man—and light those tapers yonder.’

Kelly obeyed, but with an evident reluctance, occupying time, so as to withdraw the other’s attention from his project. This stratagem did not succeed, and Charles waited patiently till his orders were fulfilled, when, taking the mirror in his hand, he stared long and steadfastly at the reflection of his features. It was several minutes before he spoke, and when he did, the voice was tremulous and full of deep feeling.

‘George, I am sadly changed; there is but little of the handsome Chevalier here. I didn’t think to look like this these fifteen years to come.’

‘Faith! for one who has gone through all that you have, I see no such signs of wear and tear,’ said Kelly. ‘Had you been a Pope or a Cardinal—had you lived like an Elector of Hanover, with no other perils than a bare head in a procession, or the gouty twinges of forty years’ “sauer kraut——“’

‘Keep your coarse ribaldry for your equals, sirrah. Let there be some, at least, above the mark of your foul slander,’ cried Charles angrily; and then, throwing the looking-glass from him, he fell back upon his bed like one utterly exhausted. Kelly (who knew him too well to continue an irritating topic, his habit being to leave quietly alone the spirit that forgot more rapidly than it resented) sipped his wine in silence for some minutes. ‘This day, sixteen years ago, I breakfasted in Carlisle, at the house of a certain Widow Branards. It’s strange how I remember a name I have never heard since,’ said Charles, in a voice totally altered from its late tone of excitement. ‘Do you know, Kelly, that it was on the turn of a straw the fate of England hung that morning? Keppoch had cut his hand with the hilt of his claymore, and instead of counselling—as he ever did—a forward movement, he joined those who advised retreat. Had we gone on, George, the game was our own. There is now no doubt on the matter.’

‘I have always heard the same,’ said Kelly; ‘and that your Majesty yielded with a profound conviction that the counsel was ruinous. Is it true, sire, that O’Sullivan agreed with your Majesty?’

‘Quite true, George; and the poor fellow shed tears—perhaps for the only time in his life—when he heard that the decision was given against us. Stuart of Appin and Kerr were of the same mind; but Dits aliter visum, George. We turned our back on Fortune that morning, and she never showed us her face after.’

‘You are not forgetting Falkirk, surely?’ said Kelly, who never lost an opportunity of any flattering allusion to the Prince’s campaigns.

‘Falkirk was but half what it ought to have been. The chieftains got to quarrel among themselves, and left Hawley to pursue his retreat unmolested; as the old song says,

‘"The turnkey spat in the jailer’s face,

While the prisoner ran away!”

And now they are all gone, George—gone where you and I must meet them some day—not a far-off one, maybe.’

‘O’Sullivan was here to-day, sire, to wish your Majesty long life and happiness; and the old fellow looked as hearty and high-spirited as ever. I saw him as he passed out of the courtyard, and you ‘d have guessed, by his air and step, that he was a man of forty.’

‘He’s nigh to eighty-five, then, or I mistake me.’ ‘Life’s strong in an Irishman—there’s no doubt of it,’ cried Kelly enthusiastically; ‘there’s no man takes more out of prosperity, nor gives way less to bad fortune.’ ‘What’s that song of yours, George, about Paddy O’Flynn—isn’t that the name?’ said the Prince, laughing. ‘Let ‘s have it, man.’

‘You mean Terry O’Flynn, sire,’ said Kelly; ‘and, faith, ‘twould puzzle me to call to mind one verse of the same song.’

‘Do you even remember the night you made it, George, in the little wayside shrine, eight miles from Avignon? I’ll never forget the astonished faces of the two friars that peeped in and saw you, glass in hand, before the fire, chanting that pleasant melody.’

‘The Lord forgive you! ‘tis many a bad thing you led me into,’ said Kelly with affected sorrow, as he arose and walked to the window. Meanwhile the Prince, in a low kind of murmuring voice, tried to recall some words of the song. ‘Talking of friars,’ said Kelly, ‘there’s a thumping big one outside, with his great face shining like the dial of a clock. I ‘m much mistaken if he’s not a countryman of my own!’

‘Can he sing, George? Has he the gift of minstrelsy, man?’

‘If your Royal Highness would like to hear the canticles, I’m sure he’d oblige you. Faith, I was right; it’s poor Luke MacManus—a simple, kind-hearted creature as ever lived. I remember now that he asked me when it was possible to see your Royal Highness; and I told him that he must put down into writing whatever he wanted to say, and come here with it on the 20th; and sure enough, there he is now.’

‘And why did you tell him any such thing, sir?’ said the Prince angrily. ‘What are these petitions but demands for aid that we have not to bestow—entreaties we cannot satisfy? Are we not pensioners ourselves? ay, by the Lord Harry, are we, and beggarly enough in our treatment too. None knows this better than yourself, Master Kelly. It is not ten days since you pawned my George. Ay, and, by the way, you never brought me the money. What do you say to that?’

‘I received twenty-four thousand francs, sire,’ said Kelly calmly; ‘eighteen of which I paid, by your Royal Highness’s order, to the Countess.’

‘I never gave such an order—where is it?’

‘Spoken, sire, in the words of a prince; and heard by one who never betrayed him,’ said the friar quickly—‘the Countess herself——’

‘No more of this, sir. We are not before a court of justice. And now let me tell you, Kelly, that the town is full of the malversation of this household; and that however proverbial Irish economy and good management be in its own country, climate and change of air would seem to have impaired its excellence. My brother tells me that our waste and extravagance are public town talk.’

‘So much the better, sire—so much the better!’

‘What do you mean by that, sirrah?’ cried the Prince angrily.

‘Your Royal Highness has heard of Alcibiades, and why he cut the tail off his dog! Well, isn’t it a comfort to think that they never say worse of us here than that we spend freely what’s given grudgingly; and that the penury of others never contaminated the spirit of your Royal Highness?’

‘Have a care, sir,’ said the Prince, with more dignity than he had shown before: ‘there will come a day, perhaps, when we may grow weary of this buffoonery.’

‘I’m sorry for it, then,’ replied Kelly unabashed; ‘for when it does, your Royal Highness will just be as little pleased with wisdom.’

It was thus alternately flattering and outraging Charles Edward—now insinuating the existence of qualities that he had not;—now disparaging gifts which he really possessed—that this man maintained an influence which others in vain tried to obtain over the Prince. It was a relief, too, to find one whose pliancy suited all his humours, and whose character had none of that high-souled independence which animated his Scottish followers. Lastly, Kelly never asked favours for himself or for others. Enough for him the privilege of the intimacy he enjoyed. He neither sought nor cared for more. Perhaps, of all his traits, none weighed more heavily in his favour than this one. It was, then, in a kind of acknowledgment of this single-mindedness that the Prince, after a pause, said:

‘Let your countryman come up here, George. I see he ‘s the only courtier that remains to us.’

Kelly rose without a word, and left the room to obey the command.

Little as those in waiting on the Prince were ever disposed to resist Kelly in any proceeding, they were carried very nearly to insubordination, as they saw him conducting through the long line of salons the humbly-clad, barefooted friar, who, with his arms reverently crossed on his breast, threw stealthy glances, as he passed, at the unwonted splendour around him.

‘I hope, sir,’ said Fra Luke respectfully, ‘that your kindness to a poor countryman won’t harm yourself; but if ever you were to run the risk, ‘tis an occasion like this might excuse it.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Kelly hastily, and staring him full in the face.

‘Why, that the petition I hold here is about one that has the best blood of Ireland in his veins; but maybe, for all that, if you knew what was in it, you mightn’t like to give it.’

Kelly paused for a few seconds, and then, as if having formed his resolution, said:

‘If that be the case, Luke, it is better that I should not see it. There’s no knowing when my favour here may come to an end. There’s not a morning breaks, nor an evening closes, that I don’t expect to hear I’m discarded, thrown off, abandoned. Maybe it would bring me luck if I was to do one, just one, good action, by way of a change, before I go.’

‘I hope you’ve done many such afore now,’ said Luke piously.

Kelly did not reply, but a sudden change in his features told how acutely the words sank into his heart.

‘Wait for me here a minute,’ said he; and motioning to Luke to be seated, he passed noiselessly into the chamber of the Prince.