Chapter I: An Unexpected Visitor

Doctor Johnson did not call that day, which Aunt Jane declared was a good sign, and I tried to think so too. But the next morning I couldn’t help feeling very anxious for his hitherto daily visit, and we also expected Mr. Mordaunt. So I sat near the window with a book in my hand, listening and looking anxiously along the road to the village.

At last I saw a carriage coming in the distance; it was not the doctor’s gig, nor Mr. Mordaunt’s fly, but a large well-appointed vehicle; and as it approached the door I recognised, by the ducal coronet, that it was the same carriage in which we went to the ball on that eventful night.

Then I saw a lady and two gentlemen get out, and I fancied that some one else remained in it; but I had no time to look again, for it drove quickly off, and Mary opened the door to admit the Duchess, with Mr. Mordaunt and the Duke. I felt rather confused and embarrassed, because I suddenly took it into my head that the other person who remained in the carriage was Carlo, and the question, “Was he well enough to travel?--and was he really going away without my seeing him?” was on the tip of my tongue.

But the Duchess was one of those kind people who possess the valuable faculty of setting everyone at their ease, so she soon engaged my attention pleasantly by her account of Dorina, and how enchanted she was with that beautiful saint. Then she said that the Marchese Spinola was much better. “And,” added she, “he is so anxious to go to his father at Sorrento that I allowed him to take a little drive to-day; and if he bears it without suffering, he is to start on his journey to-morrow. But he has had a most extraordinary escape, and his recovery was, it was feared at first, quite hopeless.”

I inquired whether his mind was not affected, because that was what the doctor at first apprehended.

“Not at all; and I suppose he has been of great use to Mr. Mordaunt about that strange business--your impostor cousin. For I am convinced he is an impostor,” she added, “and so is the Duke; and the matter is going to be well sifted, and I don’t despair of seeing you re-instated in your rights again.”

“How can that be possible?” I said. “But oh! if my father could but be cleared--if the slur they want to cast on my father could but be----”

“It will--it shall--it must!” interrupted the impetuous Mr. Mordaunt.

“Yes,” said the Duchess with a quiet smile, as she saw the Dresden china inkstand vibrate, and the pens dance, from his thump on the table. “And now I have a petition to make, my dear Miss Vivian--it is that you and Miss Stanway will come and take our places at Castle Hall, for the Duke has business which he must not longer neglect. The Gräfinn Dorina must not be left alone; and no one is so well fitted to be her companion at this trying time as yourself. And you are the only relative she has in England; and she had much better remain in the old home of her English ancestors. So I shall send the carriage for you both to-morrow, and see you installed at Castle Hall; then the Duke will take me away in the afternoon. The Count Rossi will go on the following day, for now that the funeral of his poor wife is over, he wishes to return for a time to his old home at Venice--for a time only,” she added, as she saw a disappointed look on my face. “Of course he will marry his own _fiancée_ as soon as Dorina consents, and we will have a splendid wedding, or rather a lovely and picturesque one, for it shall be a real old-fashioned fête, when all the villages for miles round will enjoy it; and I shall come and dance on the green with the old clerk; and the Duke shall dance a _minuet de la cour_ with dear old Mrs. Lacy. How I love that genuine old dame, with her long family histories--you know, I have quite learnt them by heart from her--ever since the Conquest. And that clever rogue Cattarina has been ferreting out something most mysterious, that was even unknown to Mrs. Lacy. I rather like that wicked Cattarina, for she would have gone through fire and water for her mistress, who was--well, never mind, her faults are buried with her, and we will think no ill; but what I mean is, that Cattarina was so fascinated by poor Cunigunda’s exterior charms, that now she has got a mistress as externally charming, and so good withal, I feel sure she ought to make a good and devoted servant. But there is the carriage, luckily, to stop the overflow of my eternal talk, as the Duke calls it. Our horses want exercise,” she added, as she looked out; “and as our invalid is trying to get out, we will leave him and send it back in an hour. Good-bye, and remember to be ready by twelve o’clock to-morrow morning.”

I saw that Carlo had great difficulty in moving, and though supported on each side by Mr. Mordaunt and the Duke, his progress along the little garden walk, which led from the entrance-gate up to the house door, was very slow.

I had full time to notice the look of intense suffering on his pale thin face, and the anxious look in his dark, speaking eyes. The gentlemen lifted him up the steps, and supporting him into the room, and placing him in Aunt Jane’s armchair, they left him alone with me. I hoped Aunt Jane was coming (she had gone with the Duchess to the hall door), but she did not, and I heard the carriage drive off.