Chapter XXVI: I Renew an Old Acquaintance

For three days I remained shut into my rooms at the “Orient,” not daring to go out, a prey to the utmost nervousness and agitation. Do not suppose that on that account I was the less determined in my plans for vengeance. But revenge that lays itself open to retribution misses the better half of itself. I remembered my old friend Mr. Roper’s dictum, and beat my brains only for the means to strike with impunity. I was not from the first without a design. The difficulty was to give it practical effect; because for the moment I could not use Gogo. For myself, under my assumed name, I might lie secure in this hiding. To make _him_ my carrier to the English Embassy would be to mark a sure track to my retreat with every punch of his wooden legs. I dared not let him out; I dared not even temporarily part with him in my peril; I dared not come to a decision, while knowing that my life depended on a wise one. For I was a renegade revolutionary--I could not blink the fact. Though I had never hitherto actually set foot in Naples itself, there must be many to know me by report for that apostle of the new creed of equality who, but a few years before, had stumped their country, winning converts. And now! the safety of many men--and women too--was in my hands; and not Pissani, nor those others when they came to learn, would have forgotten the nature of my secession, or the significance of the threats which had accompanied it. If passion had given me away, caution must redeem me. I had no faith in Patty’s power to protect me. The occasion was too desperate; the interests involved were too many. Pissani was a reformer before he was a lover. I _must_ be sacrificed, if possible, to the cause I had the means to betray.

All day, peeping from behind the curtains of our windows, we saw the piazza below like a seething cauldron of unrest. As significant of that as anything were the out-at-elbows letter-writers under the arcades of the old theatre of San Carlo, who, at a time when every man feared to commit his simplest thoughts to paper, did less than enough business to keep themselves in macaroni. They served to exhibit the popular bankruptcy as well as the briefless advocates, who, from thriving on the countless abuses of the law, found themselves abandoned to the lawlessness they had created; as well as the journalists, who, having been brought under a strict moral censorship, starved as vampires might on a diet of milk; as well as the professors and _savants_, who were hampered, it must be confessed, by a thousand childish restrictions in their efforts to make life beautiful by turning it inside out, and to teach men to follow in themselves, while eating an omelet, the whole process of absorption and digestion; as well as the bolder demagogues, who, mounted on steps or tubs, screamed denunciations of their misgoverning sovereigns, under the transparent veil of Claudius and Messalina, and called upon their hearers, by many classical examples, to strike for liberty and political cleanliness. At which the Lazzari laughed, understanding just so much that, if they were to be no longer flea-bitten, they would be deprived of the traditional luxury of scratching; and shaking their heads over that new idea of equality, which was in fact so old an idea as to be embodied in a popular proverb: “_Tu rubbi a me, io rubbo a te_,” which one might expound: “‘If Taffy robs me, I rob Taffy’--so what the devil’s all this fuss about?” Naples was rich in charitable institutions for the encouragement of indolent beggary; and what sort of a reform was it that sought to deprive an honest loafer of his soup? And so to a man _they_ held out for dirt, moral and material, and for the king who assured them a continuance in both--a condition of things which made revolution a very different affair from what it had been in starving Paris.

Since the date of my first visit in ’94 this ferment had been rising, in spite of all efforts of the authorities to check it. As well try to stop the decomposition of a dead body--for such was the national credit. The foolish, vile queen, panic-sick that she was destined to the fate of her better-meaning but as foolish sister in Paris, persuaded her weak, common husband into a counter-blast to the Terror--with as much effect as King James the First’s against smoking. It is bad policy to try to suppress an evil by advertising it. Self-martyrdom is the most popular of all notorieties. They inaugurated a system of espionage, which in itself was an education to conspirators; they read Jacobinism across the forehead of all learning, and so alienated the intelligence which might have saved the land; they crammed the filthy prisons with suspects, and broke the hearts and fortunes of those who were the best leaven to corruption; they made it criminal to wear scarlet waistcoats and long trousers; finally, for some such dereliction, or one less momentous, they hung up two or three respectable boys in a public square, varying the entertainment by shooting down some scores of spectators who had fallen into a panic at the noise of a distant musket-shot. And then, having thrown their sacrifice on the flames of discontent, and so lowered them, they settled down with an affectation of the strong arm, and a blindness to the embers smouldering underneath.

These had not ceased to smoulder, nevertheless, feeding on their new fuel; and by and by the blaze was to come.

_Eh bien! la voix du peuple est la voix de Dieu!_ So they say; only, unfortunately, here the Lazzari were the crack in it. It was a pretty Naples I had come to.

One afternoon, while looking out of the window, I saw a magnificent equipage cross the square, and, turning the corner towards the palace, disappear. I had been waiting during these long days for some such vision, the nature of which now, if, indeed, the plaudits of the loafers had not confirmed it in my mind, was established in the glimpse of a bold, beautiful face which I obtained in its passing. On the instant my resolution was made, and I ran to the table and hastily scribbled off a note:--

“_One whom you formerly befriended seeks your help and protection. She is in possession of important secrets, which you cannot afford to discard. Ask for her, under the name of Madame Lavasse, at the_ ‘_Orient_.’”

I called Gogo, and hurriedly instructed him--

“Lady Hamilton has just passed, driving to the palace. Her coach is gilt, with four dapple-greys. Go secretly out by the back; make your way there circumspectly, wait for her reappearance, and throw this in at the window of her carriage. Then return here, but by a roundabout way, and not till after dark. Be swift and sure. Everything--our safety, our lives--depends on this opportunity.”

He groaned out a little sigh: “And our honour, Diana? Think of the time when we shall be damned together, before you betray the child.”

I walked up and down in terrible agitation when he was gone. Betray! Who had been the traitor, of us two? Not a drop of water for her, though I were to lie in Abraham’s bosom!

Night came, but no Gogo. Tortured with doubts and apprehensions, I could neither eat nor rest. Had he too repented at last of his loyalty, and abandoned me in my need? They all fell from me, those I had succoured and most trusted. Sometimes, in my agony of mind, I upbraided his selfishness, cursed my own irreclaimable fondness in putting faith in man. I believed he had sold himself--whether to cupidity or an emotion, what did it matter. At length, quite exhausted by my passions, I fell asleep on my bed, dressed as I was.

I slept far into the morning, and awoke to a consciousness of a presence in the next room. Was it he, returned at last? Dazed, and sick with excitement, I rose and ran to meet him. A lady only was there, cloaked and mysterious. She lifted her veil, and showed me the face I had desired.

It had not, indeed, so much altered in these years as her person’s amplitude. Conceive, my dear friend, the head of a Circe on the body of a hippopotamus! Now I perceived Nature’s forethought in the gift of those immense feet. They were disproportionate no longer. She had grown colossal. The mountain had come to Mahomet. It was wonderful how, in spite of all, she could have retained the general fine contour of her features. One would have thought she could hardly have kept her countenance, seeing the changes below. I certainly found it difficult to keep mine, as I fell on my knees before her, and, catching at her hands, hung my head.

She stepped back from me, shaking the room. I understood then in a moment that the old glamour was only to be recovered, if at all, with discretion.

“Now, madam,” she said, “being come at your request, I must ask you for your reason, and as short as you’ll please to make it.”

“My messenger”--I began.

“Your messenger,” she interrupted me promptly, “is put under lock and key till we know more about him and you. He got a cut on the cheek before he was took by the guards; but that wasn’t my fault.”

I buried my face in my hands.

“I thank you, madam,” I said, with emotion. “He lies at least in better security than I.”

“Well, I won’t answer for that,” she replied, “till I come to hear what you’re after.”

I looked up.

“O, madam, my benefactress!” I cried. “It is much to expect, perhaps; but do you not know me?”

“O, perfectly, madam!” she said, with a curtsey that made her balloon. “We make it our pains to know all about our visitors. Believe me, you was under surveillance from the moment you stepped ashore at the Mole. It was not very likely, was it, that we should overlook the arrival of her as seemed wishin’ to reap the discord she had sowed among us a while back? Be sure we know you, madam, well enough, and the reputation you built for yourself in Paris too!”

Startled as I was, I had a difficulty to refrain from retorting that my reputation would bear comparison with hers. But I bit my lip on the temptation, and for the moment took refuge from everything in tears, to which, however, she listened silent.

“I did not refer to that,” I cried, looking up with clasped hands and swimming eyes, “but to the goodness of a great and beautiful lady, who once succoured a poor girl in distress.”

“And I include that too in my knowledge,” said she; “and much gratitude you’ve shown to the class as befriended you.”

“Gratitude!” I cried. “O, believe me, that, until I reached here, I never even guessed that, in conspiring against royalty, I was conspiring against you, my saviour.”

She sat down on a chair, near breaking it.

“Didn’t you?” she said, gathering the folds of her cloak about her. “Well, supposing you didn’t, what then? You ain’t goin’ to forego your principles for a sentiment like that--don’t tell me.”

“If you won’t believe me”--I murmured despairingly.

“Why look here, Madame Lavasse, or Please, or whatever your damned name is,” she said, shaking a hectoring finger at me, “one may help a girl, but a woman helps herself, which I make no bones of guessing you’ve managed to do pretty free. The question with you is whether Jacobinism or royalty is going to pay best; and if you’re proposin’ to change about and turn informer, no better moral than profit is at the bottom of your little game, I’ll vow. Well, I don’t say but in that case we’re open to treat; only I’ll ask you to drop the artless girl, which don’t sit well on you at your age, and talk with me like one woman of the world to another.”

I rose to my feet with a burning face.

“Go!” I said, with an imperious gesture; “insult me no more. Have I not suffered wrong and outrage enough, but my heart must be made the sport of every common”--

“Highty-tighty, miss!”

She rose in astonishment. For a moment she stood conning me, my quivering lips and heaving bosom. Then of a sudden she smiled.

“Well, perhaps”--she said. “There, I’ve a way of letting my tongue run away with me; but it’s no example for you to follow. I should have remembered the glass houses in the sayin’ before I twitted you with your past. Only for sure, Diana Please, it can never be said against me that I betrayed my love that betrayed me.”

My rage was all gone. I dropped my head, with a sad little cry. The sound of it brought her to my side.

“Was he not your love,” she whispered--“him that came with you?”

And I answered, “He was my love.”

“Was--was,” she repeated. “Well--I see. They take other fancies.”

“You was sold yourself--is it not true?” I muttered.

“Ay,” she answered, and sighed. “But it was for gold.”

“_You_ can forgive, then, and forget,” I said; “but not I--no, never.”

“You would ruin him?”

“Yes, and her.”

“Bring him to the gallows?”

“That is why I sent for you. You can trust me.”

“And in the meantime you fear for yourself?”

“I struck her. He tried to stab me. I cried, _Vive le Roi!_ You know what that means.”

“Cry _Vive la Reine_ for the future. ’Tis the sweet saint who suffers most. Well, it seems the truth at last; and you have your provocation--by God, you have! Only for me, having one different, to help myself by you?--it goes against my stomach somehow. I wish it was your principles instead of your jealousy.”

“Help me in nothing but to some place of safety, where I can inform and direct the court. _It_ will not be troubled with your ladyship’s scruples.”

“How do you know? ’Tis so you have been taught to regard my sweet queen, I suppose?”

“O, madam!” I cried, “you know what made me an ardent pupil.”

She stood musing upon me long and earnestly.

“Yes, perhaps,” she said at length, and sighed; “what a fool preacher is Love, not to be able to keep his own faith! To drive woman for refuge on woman--’tis like banishing your physician to the enemy’s camp. Well”--she took my hands; I thought she was going to kiss me, but she made no offer--“for myself, I don’t want to hear none of your inculpations; but I’ll put you in train to satisfy your passions on others that may. Will that suit you?”

She turned before I could answer, and was going.

“It must be soon,” I urged hoarsely, following her; “O, madam! don’t you understand that it must be soon?”

“Within an hour or two,” she said, over her shoulder. “Have no fear. You are already protected--and watched.”

I set myself, with what self-control I could, to await her return; for, after our emotional confidences, I expected nothing less than that she would come for me presently in person. But in that I was mistaken, as was made evident in the ushering up to me by and by of a very courtly young gentleman, of a shrewd, sallow visage, who informed me, with a bow, that he was Love’s emissary.

“His Majesty, sir,” I said, with a faint smile, and some intentional ambiguity, “is well represented. Do we go to the palace?”

“We go,” he said, “_to_ the palace. Will madam be pleased to accept my escort?”

I took the arm he offered me. In view of some such contingency, I had spent the interval in making my toilette agreeably to it.

He conducted me out by the back way to the stables, where, in a little court, we found an ordinary post-chaise, with two horses, awaiting us.

“_Faire comme on le juge à propos_,” murmured my companion; and, seeing my trunk (pregnant with damning evidence) well secured in front, he handed me in, followed himself, pulled down the blinds, and gave the word. In an instant we were rolling over the stones.

It was a very roundabout way, it seemed to me, that we took to the palace; yet for long--so potent was my trust in myself as an emissary of vengeance, and so engaging the chatter of my comrade--I suspected no treachery. But at length, losing conscious sense, through the thunder of the wheels, of a roar and racket which had once accompanied it, I started as it were awake, and, in an immediate panic, peeped from behind the blind nearest me. And then I saw that we had already left the town, and were tearing along country roads.

I half rose, with a cry: “The palace! This is not the way to it!”

My companion seized my wrist in a grip of steel, forcing me to reseat myself.

“The very nearest, I can assure you, madam.”

“You are taking me to prison?”

“My faith! a prison that some would like,” he said, showing his teeth.

I struggled with him. “Let me out! I will raise the country else!”

He released me at once.

“As madam wills. Madam will claim protection of her friends the Jacobins? For me, I consult only her safety.”

“What!” I panted at him, sinking back. “Tell me who are you?”

“Luigi de’ Medici, at madam’s service,” he said, with a bow; “a name, at least, that should be a guarantee of some worth.”

“No doubt, sir; but, as a stranger, at your mercy”--

“I have the honour to be, madam, the chief of the police.”

The word awoke new frenzy in me.

“My God! I am betrayed. For pity’s sake, sir, tell me where we go.”

“I answered, madam, to the palace. I am a man of my word.”

“What palace?”

“Ah! At length madam talks reason. To the Palace of Caserta, ten leagues away.”

I stared at him aghast.

“To be immured there?”

“Truly,” he said, “to be immured in a paradise, amongst fountains and flowers! It is not like the inside of a wall.”

“You are pleased to mock me, sir. But why am I brought so far?”

“Madam shall ask of her mirror,” he said, with a charming grin. “Shall I so abuse my office as to admit that His Majesty is susceptible; and that Madame the English Ambassadress--who, nevertheless, is of a perfect honour--is jealous for her friend the queen, and, perhaps, for her own pre-eminence in beauty? Certainly not. It is quite enough to say that Madame Lavasse, being in some danger of assassination in Naples, is removed to a distance for her own security; to a place, in short, whence she can direct the lightning, without exciting suspicion of collusion with Jupiter.”

He bent and looked into my face.

“I vow, madam,” he said, “that the last frost of discretion must melt in the fire of such beauty. Take my word for it, that the Queen of Olympus never of her will would have admitted Venus to be of her court.”

This was very disarming, to be sure; and already, before we reached Caserta, Signor de’ Medici was in possession of some preliminary information that proved useful to him.