Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier: A Novel. Lever Charles James

gesture, stooped down to kiss his hand. ‘You are an Irishman.’ said Charles, speaking with a thick but rapid utterance; ‘from none of your countrymen have I met with anything but loyalty and affection. Tell me, then, frankly, what you know of this paper – who wrote it?’

      ‘I did, myself, your Royal Highness,’ said Luke, trembling all over with fear.

      ‘Its contents are all true – strictly true?’

      ‘As the words of this holy Book.’ said Luke, placing his hand on his breviary.

      ‘Why were they not made known to me before – answer me that?’ cried Charles angrily.

      ‘I’ll tell your Royal Highness why,’ replied Luke, who gained courage as he was put upon the defensive. ‘She that ‘s gone – the Heavens be her bed! – made her sister promise, in her last hour, never to ask nor look for favour or benefit from your Royal Highness.’

      ‘I will not believe this,’ broke in Charles indignantly; ‘you are more than bold, sir, to dare to tell me so.’

      ‘’Tis true as Gospel,’ replied the friar. ‘Her words were: “Let there be one that went down to the grave with the thought that loving him was its best reward! and leave me to think that I live in his memory as I used in his heart.”’

      The Prince turned away, and drew his hand across his eyes.

      ‘How came she here – since when?’ asked he suddenly.

      ‘Four years back; we came together. I bore her company all the way from Ireland, and on foot too, just to put the child into the college here.’

      ‘And she has been in poverty all this while?’

      ‘Poverty! faith, you might call it distress! – keeping a little trattoria in the Viccolo d’Orso, taking sewing, washing – whatever she could; slaving and starving, just to get shoes and the like for the boy.’

      ‘How comes it, then, that she has yielded at last to write me this?’ said Charles, who, in proportion as his self-accusings grew more poignant, sought to turn reproach on any other quarter.

      ‘She didn’t, nor wouldn’t,’ said the Fra; ‘’twas I did it myself. I told her that she might ease her conscience, by never accepting anything; that I’d write the petition and go up with it, and that all I ‘d ask was a trifle for the child.’

      ‘She loves him, then,’ said Charles tenderly. The friar nodded his head slowly twice, and muttered, ‘God knows she does.’

      ‘And does he repay her affection?’

      ‘How can he? Sure he doesn’t know her; he never sees her. When we were on the way here, he always thought it was his nurse she was; and from that hour to this he never set eyes on her.’

      ‘What motive was there for all this?’

      ‘Just to save him the shame among the rest, that they couldn’t say his mother’s sister was in rags and wretchedness, without a meal to eat.’

      ‘She never sees him, then?’

      ‘Only when he walks out with the class, every Friday; they come down the hill from the Capitol, and then she’s there, watching to get a look at him.’

      ‘And he – what is he like?’

      The friar stepped back, and gazed at the Prince from head to foot in silence, and then at length said: ‘He’s like a Prince, sorrow less! The black serge gown, the coarse shoes, the square cap, ugly as they are, can’t disfigure him; and though they cut off his beautiful hair, that curled half-way down his back, they couldn’t spoil him. He has the great dark blue eyes of his mother, and the long lashes, almost girlish to look at.’

      ‘He’s mild and gentle, then?’ said Charles pensively.

      ‘Indeed and I won’t tell you a lie,’ said Luke, half mournfully, ‘but that ‘s just what I believe he isn’t. The sub-rector says there’s nothing he couldn’t learn, either in the sciences or the humanities. He can write some of the ancient and three of the modern tongues. His disputations got him the medal; but somehow – ’

      ‘Well – go on. Somehow – ’

      ‘He’s wild – wild,’ said the friar, and as if he was glad to have found the exact word he wanted; ‘he ‘d rather go out on the Campagna there and ride one of the driver’s ponies all day, than he ‘d walk in full procession with all the cardinals. He ‘d like to be fighting the shepherds’ dogs, wicked as they are, or goading their mad cattle till they turn on him. Many a day they ‘ve caught him at that sport; and, if I ‘m not mistaken, he’s in punishment now, though Mrs. Mary doesn’t know it, for putting a ram inside the railings of a fountain, so that the neighbours durstn’t go near to draw water. ‘Tis diversions like these has made him as ragged and tattered as he is.’

      ‘Bad stuff for the cloister,’ said Charles, with a faint smile.

      ‘Who knows? Sure Cardinal Guidotti was at every mischief when a boy; and there’s Gardoni, the secretary of the Quirinal, wasn’t he the terror of the city with his pranks?’

      ‘Can I see this boy – I mean, could he be brought here without his knowing or suspecting to whom he was presented?’

      ‘Sure, if Kelly was to – ’

      ‘Ay, ay, I know as well as you do.’ broke in the Prince, ‘George Kelly has craft and cunning enough for more than that; but supposing, my worthy Fra, that I did not care to intrust Kelly with this office: supposing that, for reasons known to myself, I wished this matter a secret, can you hit upon the means of bringing the lad here, that I might see and speak with him?’

      ‘It should be after dark, your Royal Highness, or he would know the palace again, and then find out who lived in it.’

      ‘Well, be it so.’

      ‘Then there’s the rules of the college; without a special leave a student cannot leave the house, and even then he must have a professor with him.’

      ‘A cardinal’s order would, of course, be sufficient,’ said the Prince.

      ‘To be sure it would, sir,’ said the friar, with a gesture that showed how implicitly his confidence was given to such a conjuncture.

      ‘The matter shall be done then, and thus: on Tuesday next Kelly goes to Albano, and will not return till Wednesday or Thursday evening. At seven o’clock on Tuesday evening you will present yourself at the college, and ask for the president: you will only have to say that you are come for the youth Fitzgerald. He will be at once given into your charge; drive then at once to the Corso, where you can leave the carriage, and proceed hither on foot. When you arrive here, you shall be admitted at once. One only caution I have to give you, friar, and it is this: upon your reserve and discretion it depends whether I ever befriend this boy, or cast him off for ever. Should one syllable of this interview transpire – should I ever discover that, under any pretence or from any accident, you have divulged what has passed between us here – and discover it I must, if it be so – from that instant I cease to take interest in him. I know your cloth well; you can be secret if you will: let this be an occasion for the virtue. I need not tell you more; nor will I add one threat to enforce my caution. The boy’s own fortune in life is on the issue; that will be enough.’

      ‘Is Mrs. Mary to be intrusted with the secret?’ said the Fra timidly.

      ‘No; not now at least.’ The Prince sat down, and leaned his forehead on his hand in thought. At length he said: ‘The boy will ask you, in all likelihood, whither you are leading him. You must say that a countryman of his own, a man of some influence, and who knew his friends, desires to see and speak with him. That he is one with whom he may be frank and open-hearted; free to tell whatever he feels; whether he likes his present life or seeks to change it. He is to address me as the Count, and be careful yourself to give me no higher title. I believe I have said all.’

      ‘If Kelly asks me what was my business with your Royal Highness?’

      ‘Ay; well thought of. Say it was a matter of charity; and