CHAPTER X.
BEING A SHORT CHAPTER, CONTAINING A MOST IMPORTANT EVENT.
SIR WILLIAM'S letter was still fresh in my mind, when, for want of someless noble quarter wherein to bestow my tediousness, I repaired to St.John. As I crossed the hall to his apartment, two men, just dismissedfrom his presence, passed me rapidly; one was unknown to me, but therewas no mistaking the other,--it was Montreuil. I was greatly startled;the priest, not appearing to notice me, and conversing in a whisperedyet seemingly vehement tone with his companion, hurried on and vanishedthrough the street door. I entered St. John's room: he was alone, andreceived me with his usual gayety.
"Pardon me, Mr. Secretary," said I; "but if not a question of state, doinform me what you know respecting the taller one of those two gentlemenwho have just quitted you."
"It is a question of state, my dear Devereux, so my answer must bebrief,--very little."
"You know who he is?"
"Yes, a Jesuit, and a marvellously shrewd one: the Abbe Montreuil."
"He was my tutor."
"Ah, so I have heard."
"And your acquaintance with him is positively and _bona fide_ of a statenature?"
"Positively and _bona fide_."
"I could tell you something of him; he is certainly in the serviceof the Court at St. Germains, and a terrible plotter on this side theChannel."
"Possibly; but I wish to receive no information respecting him."
One great virtue of business did St. John possess, and I have neverknown any statesman who possessed it so eminently: it was the discreetdistinction between friends of the statesman and friends of the man.Much and intimately as I knew St. John, I could never glean from hima single secret of a state nature, until, indeed, at a later period, Ileagued myself to a portion of his public schemes. Accordingly I foundhim, at the present moment, perfectly impregnable to my inquiries;and it was not till I knew Montreuil's companion was that celebratedintriguant, the Abbe Gaultier, that I ascertained the exact natureof the priest's business with St. John, and the exact motive of thecivilities he had received from Abigail Masham.* Being at last forced,despairingly, to give over the attempt on his discretion, I suffered St.John to turn the conversation upon other topics, and as these were notmuch to the existent humour of my mind, I soon rose to depart.
* Namely, that Count Devereux ascertained the priest's communicationsand overtures from the Chevalier. The precise extent of Bolingbroke'ssecret negotiations with the exiled Prince is still one of the darkestportions of the history of that time. That negotiations _were_ carriedon, both by Harley and by St. John, very largely, and very closely, Ineed not say that there is no doubt.
"Stay, Count," said St. John; "shall you ride to-day?"
"If you will bear me company."
"_Volontiers_,--to say the truth, I was about to ask you to canter yourbay horse with me first to Spring Gardens,* where I have a promise tomake to the director; and, secondly, on a mission of charity to a poorforeigner of rank and birth, who, in his profound ignorance of thiscountry, thought it right to enter into a plot with some wise heads, andto reveal it to some foolish tongues, who brought it to us with as muchclatter as if it were a second gunpowder project. I easily broughthim off that scrape, and I am now going to give him a caution for thefuture. Poor gentleman, I hear that he is grievously distressed inpecuniary matters, and I always had a kindness for exiles. Who knows butthat a state of exile may be our own fate! and this alien is sprung froma race as haughty as that of St. John or of Devereux. The _res angustadomi_ must gall him sorely!"
* Vauxhall.
"True," said I, slowly. "What may be the name of the foreigner?"
"Why--complain not hereafter that I do not trust you in state matters--Iwill indulge--D'Alvarez--Don Diego,--a hidalgo of the best blood ofAndalusia; and not unworthy of it, I fancy, in the virtues of fighting,though he may be in those of council. But--Heavens! Devereux--you seemill!"
"No, no! Have you ever seen this man?"
"Never."
At this word a thrill of joy shot across me, for I knew St. John's famefor gallantry, and I was suspicious of the motives of his visit.
"St. John, I know this Spaniard; I know him well, and intimately. Couldyou not commission me to do your errand, and deliver your caution?Relief from me he might accept; from you, as a stranger, pride mightforbid it; and you would really confer on me a personal and essentialkindness, if you would give me so fair an opportunity to confer kindnessupon him."
"Very well, I am delighted to oblige you in any way. Take his direction;you see his abode is in a very pitiful suburb. Tell him from me that heis quite safe at present; but tell him also to avoid, henceforth,all imprudence, all connection with priests, plotters, _et tous cesgens-la_, as he values his personal safety, or at least his continuancein this most hospitable country. It is not from every wood that we makea Mercury, nor from every brain that we can carve a Mercury's genius ofintrigue."
"Nobody ought to be better skilled in the materials requisite for suchproductions than Mr. Secretary St. John!" said I; "and now, adieu."
"Adieu, if you will not ride with me. We meet at Sir William Wyndham'sto-morrow."
Masking my agitation till I was alone, I rejoiced when I found myselfin the open streets. I summoned a hackney-coach, and drove as rapidlyas the vehicle would permit to the petty and obscure suburb to which St.John had directed me. The coach stopped at the door of a very humble butnot absolutely wretched abode. I knocked at the door. A woman opened it,and, in answer to my inquiries, told me that the poor foreign gentlemanwas very ill,--very ill indeed,--had suffered a paralytic stroke,--notexpected to live. His daughter was with him now,--would see noone,--even Mr. Barnard had been denied admission.
At that name my feelings, shocked and stunned at first by the unexpectedintelligence of the poor Spaniard's danger, felt a sudden and fiercerevulsion. I combated it. "This is no time," I thought, "for anyjealous, for any selfish, emotion. If I can serve her, if I can relieveher father, let me be contented."--"She will see me," I said aloud, andI slipped some money in the woman's hand. "I am an old friend of thefamily, and I shall not be an unwelcome intruder on the sickroom of thesufferer."
"Intruder, sir,--bless you, the poor gentleman is quite speechless andinsensible."
At hearing this I could refrain no longer. Isora's disconsolate,solitary, destitute condition broke irresistibly upon me, and allscruple of more delicate and formal nature vanished at once. I ascendedthe stairs, followed by the old woman--she stopped me by the thresholdof a room on the second floor, and whispered "_There_!" I paused aninstant,--collected breath and courage, and entered. The room waspartially darkened. The curtains were drawn closely around the bed. Bya table, on which stood two or three phials of medicine, I beheld Isora,listening with an eager, a _most_ eager and intent face to a man whosegarb betrayed his healing profession, and who, laying a finger onthe outstretched palm of his other hand, appeared giving his preciseinstructions, and uttering that oracular breath which--mere human wordsto him--was a message of fate itself,--a fiat on which hung all thatmakes life life to his trembling and devout listener. Monarchs of earth,ye have not so supreme a power over woe and happiness as one villageleech! As he turned to leave her, she drew from a most slender purse afew petty coins, and I saw that she muttered some words indicative ofthe shame of poverty, as she tremblingly tended them to the outstretchedpalm. Twice did that palm close and open on the paltry sum; and thethird time the native instinct of the heart overcame the later impulseof the profession. The limb of Galen drew back, and shaking with agentle oscillation his capitalian honours, he laid the money softly onthe table, and buttoning up the pouch of his nether garment, as if toresist temptation, he pressed the poor hand still extended towards him,and bowing over it with a kind respect for which I did long to approachand kiss his most withered and undainty cheek, he turned quickly round,and almost fell against me in the abstracted hurry of his exit.
"Hush!" said I, softly. "What hope of your
patient?"
The leech glanced at me meaningly, and I whispered to him to wait forme below. Isora had not yet seen me. It is a notable distinction in thefeelings, that all but the solitary one of grief sharpen into exquisiteedge the keenness of the senses, but grief blunts them to a most dullobtuseness. I hesitated now to come forward; and so I stood, hat inhand, by the door, and not knowing that the tears streamed down mycheeks as I fixed my gaze upon Isora. She too stood still, just wherethe leech had left her, with her eyes fixed upon the ground, and herhead drooping. The right hand, which the man had pressed, had sunkslowly and heavily by her side, with the small snowy fingers half closedover the palm. There is no describing the despondency which the listlessposition of that hand spoke, and the left hand lay with a like indolenceof sorrow on the table, with one finger outstretched and pointingtowards the phials, just as it bad, some moments before, secondedthe injunctions of the prim physician. Well, for my part, if I were apainter I would come now and then to a sick chamber for a study.
At last Isora, with a very quiet gesture of self-recovery, moved towardsthe bed, and the next moment I was by her side. If my life depended onit, I could not write one, no, not _one_ syllable more of this scene.