Sunrise by William Black (online e book reader TXT) 📖

evil days have fallen on the Pope, Brother Granaglia, when one of his own Cardinals proposes that he should at last countenance a secret society. But his Eminence was mad with fear--was it not so? He wanted to win you over with promises, eh? Idle words, and no more. He feeds you on wind, and sends you away, and returns to his mistresses and his wines and his fountains of perfume?"

"Not quite so," said the other, with the same dry smile, "His Eminence, as I say to you, knows as well as any one in Europe who and what we are, and what is our power. The day after I called on him with my little message, what does he do--of his own free-will, mind you--but send back the daughter of old De Bedros to her home, with a pledge to her father that she shall have a dowry of ten thousand lire when she marries. The father is pleased, the daughter is not. She sits and cries. She talks of herself getting at him with a stiletto."

He took a cigarette, and accepted a light from Calabressa.

"Further," he continued, "his Eminence is so kind as to propose to give the Council an annual subsidy from his own purse of thirty thousand lire."

"Thirty thousand lire!" Calabressa exclaimed.

But at this point even Granaglia began to laugh.

"Yes, yes, my friend," he said, apparently apostrophizing the absent Cardinal. "You know, then, who we are, and you do not wish to give up all pleasures. No; we are to become the good boy among secret societies; we are to have the blessing of the Pope; we are to fight Prince Bismarck for you. Prince Bismarck has all his knights and his castles on the board; but what are they against an angelic host of bishops and some millions of common pawns? Prince Bismarck wishes to plunge Europe again into war. The church with this tremendous engine within reach, says, No. Do you wish to find eight men--eight men, at the least--out of every company of every regiment in all your corps d'armee throw down their rifles at the first onset of battle? You will shoot them for mutiny? My dear fellow, you cannot, the enemy is upon you. With eight men out of each company throwing down their weapons, and determined either to desert or die, how on earth can you fight at all? Well, then, good Bismarck, you had better make your peace with the Church, and rescind those Falk laws. What do you think of that scheme, Calabressa? It was ingenious, was it not, to have come into the head of a man under sentence of death?"

"But the thirty thousand lire, Brother Granaglia. It is a tremendous bribe."

"The Council does not accept bribes, Brother Calabressa," said the other, coldly,

"It is decided, then, that the decree remains to be executed?"

"I know nothing to the contrary. But if you wish to know for certain, you must seek the Council. They are at Naples."

He pulled an ink-bottle before him, and made a motion with his forefinger.

"You understand?"

"Yes, yes," Calabressa answered. "And I will go on to Naples, Brother Granaglia; for I have with me one who I think will carry out the wishes of the Council effectively, so far as his Eminence the Cardinal is concerned."

"Who is he?" said the other, but with no great interest.

"Yakov Kirski. He is a Russian."


CHAPTER XXVIII.


A CLIMAX.

It was a momentous decision that George Brand had to arrive at; and yet he scarcely seemed to be aware of it. The man had changed so much during these past six months.

"Do you know, Evelyn," he was saying to his friend, on the very evening on which his answer was to be given to Ferdinand Lind, "I am beginning to look on that notion of my going to America with anything but dislike. Rather the opposite, indeed. I should like to get rid of a lot of old associations, and start in a new and wider field. With another life to lead, don't you want another sort of world to live it in?"

Lord Evelyn regarded him. No one had observed with a closer interest the gradual change that had come over this old friend of his. And he was proud of it, too; for had it not been partly of his doing?

"One does not breathe free air here," Brand continued, rather absently--as if his mental vision was fixed on the greater spaces beyond the seas. "With a new sort of life beginning, wouldn't it be better to start it under new conditions--feeling yourself unhampered--with nothing around to disturb even the foolishness of your dreams and hopes? Then you could work away at your best, leaving the result to time."

"I know perfectly what all that means," Lord Evelyn said. "You are anxious to get away from Lind. You believe in your work, but you don't like to be associated with him."

"Perhaps I know a little more than you, Evelyn," said Brand, gently, "of Lind's relation to the society. He does not represent it to me at all. He is only one of its servants, like ourselves. But don't let us talk about him."

"You must talk about him," Lord Evelyn said, as he pulled out his watch. "It is now seven. At eight you go to the initiation of Molyneux, and you have promised to give Lind his answer to-night. Well?"

Brand was playing idly with a pocket-pencil. After a minute or two, he said,

"I promised Natalie to consider this thing without any reference to her whatever--that I would decide just as if there was no possibility of her becoming my wife. I promised that; but it is hard to do, Evelyn. I have tried to imagine my never having seen her, and that I had been led into this affair solely through you. Then I do think that if you had come to me and said that my giving up every penny I possess would forward a good work--would do indirect benefit to a large number of people, and so forth--I do think I could have said, 'All right, Evelyn; take it.' I never cared much for money; I fancy I could get on pretty well on a sovereign a week. I say that if you had come to me with this request--"

"Precisely," Lord Evelyn said, quickly. "You would have said yes, if I had come to you. But because it is Lind, whom you distrust, you fall away from the height of self-sacrifice, and regard the proposal from the point of view of the Waldegrave Club. Mind you, I am not counselling you one way or the other. I am only pointing out to you that it is your dislike of Lind that prevents your doing what you otherwise would have done."

"Very well," said the other, boldly. "Have I not reason to distrust him? How can I explain his conduct and his implied threats except on the supposition that he has been merely playing with me, as far as his daughter is concerned; and that as soon as I had handed over this property I should find it out? Oh, it is a very pretty scheme altogether! This heap of English money transferred to the treasury; Lind at length achieving his ambition of being put on the Council; Natalie carried off to Italy; and myself granted the honor of stepping into Lind's shoes in Lisle Street. On the other hand: 'Refuse, and we pack you off to America.' Now, you know, Evelyn, one does not like to be threatened into anything!"

"Then you have decided to say, No?"

He did not answer for a second or two; when he did, his manner was quite changed.

"I rather think I know what both you and Natalie would have me do, although you won't say so explicitly. And if you and she had come to me with this proposal, do you think there would have been any difficulty? I should have been satisfied if she had put her hand in mine, and said, 'Thank you.' Then I should have reminded her that she was sacrificing something too."

He relapsed into silence again; Lord Evelyn was vaguely conscious that the minutes were passing by, and that his friend seemed as far off as ever from any decision.

"You remember the old-fashioned rose-garden, Evelyn?"

"At the beeches? Yes."

"Don't you think Natalie would like the view from that side of the house? And if she chose that side, I was thinking of having a conservatory built all the length of the rooms, with steps opening out into the rose-garden. She could go out there for a stroll of a morning."

So these had been his dreams.

"If I go to America," he said presently, "I should expect you to look after the old place a little bit. You might take your sisters there occasionally, and turn them loose; it wants a woman's hand here and there. Mrs. Alleyne would put you all right; and of course I should send Waters down, and give up those rooms in Buckingham Street."

"But I cannot imagine your going to America, somehow," Lord Evelyn said. "Surely there is plenty for you to do here."

"I will say this of Lind, that he is not an idle talker. What he says he means. Besides, Molyneux can take up my work in the North; he is the very man."

Again silence. It was now half-past seven.

"I wish, though, it had been something more exciting," Brand said. "I should not have minded having a turn at the Syrian business; I am not much afraid of risking my neck. There is not much danger in Philadelphia."

"But look here, Brand," said Lord Evelyn, regarding him attentively. "You are speaking with great equanimity about your going to America; possibly you might like the change well enough; but do I understand you that you are prepared to go alone?"

Brand looked up; he understood what was meant.

"If I am ordered--yes."

He held out his right hand; on the third finger there was a massive gold ring--a plain hoop, without motto or design whatever.

"There," said he, "is the first ring I ever wore. It was given to me this afternoon, to remind me of a promise; and that promise is to me more binding than a hundred oaths."

He rose with a sigh.

"Ah, well, Evelyn, whatever happens we will not complain. There have been compensations."

"But you have not told me what answer you mean to give to Lind."

"Suppose I wait until I see him before deciding?"

"Then you will say, No. You have allowed your distrust of him to become a sort of mania, and the moment you see him the mere sight of him will drive you into antagonism."

"I tell you what I wish I could do, Evelyn," said the other, laughing: "I wish I could turn over everything I have got to you, and escape scot-free to America and start my own life free and unencumbered."

"And alone?"

His face grew grave again.

"There is nothing possible else!" said he.

It was nearly eight o'clock when he left. As he walked along Piccadilly, a clear and golden twilight was shining over the trees in the Green Park. All around him was the roar of the London streets; but it was not that that he heard. Was it not rather the sound of a soft, low voice, and the silvery notes of the zither?