Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXV, June, 1852

When at length the little one had been hushed into a gentle slumber, and when Margarita, with the assistance of her master's cloak, and some of her own clothes, had made a bed for the elder boy, and placed him in it, the good man told her how the children had been committed to his care, and the promise he had made, though not in words, to protect them.

"That is very right and good, no doubt," said Margarita; "I only want to know how we are all to live? The priest opened his Bible, and read aloud:

"Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward."

"Amen!" said Margarita.

Twelve years passed by. The parish priest of San Pietro, who was now more than seventy years old, was sitting in the sunshine at his door. Near him, a boy of about twelve years old was reading aloud from the Bible, looking occasionally toward a tall, fine-looking young man, who was hard at work in a garden close by. Margarita, who was now become blind, sat and listened. Suddenly, the sound of wheels was heard, and the boy exclaimed: "Oh! the beautiful carriage!" A splendid carriage approached rapidly, and stopped before the door. A richly-dressed servant approached, and asked for a cup of water for his master.

"Carlos," said the priest to the younger boy, "go, bring water to the gentleman; and add some wine, if he will accept it. Go quickly!" At this moment the carriage-door opened, and a gentleman, apparently about fifty years old, alighted.

"Are these your nephews?" said he to the priest.

"They are more than that, señor; they are my children – the children of my adoption."

"How is that?"

"I will tell you, señor; for I am old and poor, and know but little of the world, and am in much need of advice; for I know not what to do with these two children." He related the story we have just told. "And now, señor, what do you advise me to do?"

"Apply to one of the nobles of the court, who must assign you a pension of four thousand ducats."

"I asked you for advice, señor, and not for jest."

"And then, your church must be rebuilt. We will call it the Church of the Cup of Cold Water. Here is the plan. See, this is to be the vicarage; and here, divided by this paling – "

"What does this mean? What would you say? And, surely, I remember that voice, that face – "

"I am Don José della Ribeira; and twelve years ago, I was the brigand José. I escaped from prison; and – for the revolution made great changes – am now powerful. My children – "

He clasped them in his arms. And when at length he had embraced them a hundred times, with tears, and smiles, and broken sentences; and when all had in some degree recovered their composure, he took the hand of the priest and said: "Well, father, will you not accept the Church of the Cup of Cold Water?" The old man, deeply affected, turned to Margarita, and repeated:

"Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward."

"Amen!" replied the aged woman, her voice tremulous from emotion.

A short time afterward, Don José della Ribeira and his two sons were present at the consecration of the church of San-Pietro-del-Vaso-di-Aqua-Fria, one of the prettiest churches in the neighborhood of Sevilla.

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 3

CHAPTER XIX. – Continued

"Bother," said Dick! "What do women know about politics. I wish you'd mind the child – it is crumpling up and playing almighty smash with that flim-flam book, which cost me a one pound one."

Mrs. Avenel submissively bowed her head, and removed the Annual from the hands of the young destructive; the destructive set up a squall, as destructives generally do when they don't have their own way. Dick clapped his hands to his ears. "Whe-e-ew, I can't stand this; come and take a walk, Leslie; I want stretching!" He stretched himself as he spoke, first half way up to the ceiling, and then fairly out of the room.

Randal with his May Fair manner, turned toward Mrs. Avenel as if to apologize for her husband and himself.

"Poor Richard?" said she, "he is in one of his humors – all men have them. Come and see me again soon. When does Almack's open!"

"Nay, I ought to ask you that question, you who know every thing that goes on in our set," said the young serpent. Any tree planted in "our set," if it had been but a crab-tree, would have tempted Mr. Avenel's Eve to a jump at its boughs.

"Are you coming, there?" cried Dick from the foot of the stairs.

CHAPTER XX

"I have just been at our friend Levy's," said Randal when he and Dick were outside the street door. "He, like you, is full of politics – pleasant man – for the business he is said to do."

"Well," said Dick slowly, "I suppose he is pleasant, but make the best of it – and still – "

"Still what, my dear Avenel?" (Randal here for the first time discarded the formal Mister.)

Mr. Avenel. – "Still the thing itself is not pleasant."

Randal (with his soft hollow laugh). – "You mean borrowing money upon more than five per cent?"

"Oh, curse the per centage. I agree with Bentham on the Usury Laws – no shackles in trade for me, whether in money or any thing else. That's not it. But when one owes a fellow money even at two per cent, and 'tis not convenient to pay him, why, somehow or other, it makes one feel small; it takes the British Liberty out of a man!"

"I should have thought you more likely to lend money than to borrow it."

"Well, I guess you are right there, as a general rule. But I tell you what it is, sir; there is too great a mania for competition getting up in this rotten old country of ours. I am as liberal as most men. I like competition to a certain extent, but there is too much of it, sir – too much of it!"

Randal looked sad and convinced. But if Leonard had heard Dick Avenel, what would have been his amaze! Dick Avenel rail against competition! Think there could be too much of it? Of course, "heaven and earth are coming together," said the spider when the housemaid's broom invaded its cobweb. Dick was all for sweeping away other cobwebs; but he certainly thought heaven and earth coming together when he saw a great Turk's-head besom poked up at his own.

Mr. Avenel in his genius for speculation and improvement, had established a factory at Screwstown, the first which had ever eclipsed the church spire with its Titanic chimney. It succeeded well at first. Mr. Avenel transferred to this speculation nearly all his capital. "Nothing," quoth he, "paid such an interest. Manchester was getting worn out – time to show what Screwstown could do. Nothing like competition." But by-and-by a still greater capitalist than Dick Avenel, finding out that Screwstown was at the mouth of a coal mine, and that Dick's profits were great, erected a still uglier edifice, with a still taller chimney. And having been brought up to the business, and making his residence in the town, while Dick employed a foreman and flourished in London, this infamous competitor so managed, first to share, and then gradually to sequester, the profits which Dick had hitherto monopolized, that no wonder Mr. Avenel thought competition should have its limits. "The tongue touches where the tooth aches," as Dr. Riccabocca would tell us. By little and little our juvenile Talleyrand (I beg the elder great man's pardon) wormed out from Dick this grievance, and in the grievance discovered the origin of Dick's connection with the money-lender.

"But Levy," said Avenel, candidly, "is a decentish chap in his way – friendly too. Mrs. A. finds him useful; brings some of your young highflyers to her soirées. To be sure, they don't dance – stand all in a row at the door, like mutes at a funeral. Not but what they have been uncommon civil to me lately – Spendquick particularly. By-the-by, I dine with him to-morrow. The aristocracy are behindhand – not smart, sir – not up to the march; but when a man knows how to take 'em, they beat the New Yorkers in good manners. I'll say that for them. I have no prejudice."

"I never saw a man with less; no prejudice even against Levy."

"No, not a bit of it! Every one says he's a Jew; he says he's not. I don't care a button what he is. His money is English – that's enough for any man of a liberal turn of mind. His charges, too, are moderate. To be sure, he knows I shall pay them; only what I don't like in him is a sort of way he has of mon-chering and my-good-fellowing one, to do things quite out of the natural way of that sort of business. He knows I have got parliament influence. I could return a couple of members for Screwstown, and one, or perhaps two, for Lansmere, where I have of late been cooking up an interest; and he dictates to – no, not dictates– but tries to humbug me into putting in his own men. However, in one respect we are likely to agree. He says you want to come into Parliament. You seem a smart young fellow; but you must throw over that stiff red tapist of yours, and go with Public Opinion, and – Myself."

"You are very kind, Avenel; perhaps when we come to compare opinions we may find that we agree entirely. Still, in Egerton's present position, delicacy to him – however, we'll not discuss that now. But you really think I might come in for Lansmere – against the L'Estrange interest, too, which must be strong there?"

"It was very strong, but I've smashed it, I calculate."

"Would a contest there cost very much?"

"Well, I guess you must come down with the ready. But, as you say, time enough to discuss that when you have squared your account with 'delicacy;' come to me then, and we'll go into it."

Randal, having now squeezed his orange dry, had no desire to waste his time in brushing up the rind with his coat-sleeve, so he unhooked his arm from Avenel, and looking at his watch, discovered he should be just in time for an appointment of the most urgent business – hailed a cab, and drove off.

Dick looked hipped and disconsolate at being left alone; he yawned very loud, to the astonishment of three prim old maiden Belgravians who were passing that way; and then his mind began to turn toward his factory at Screwstown, which had led to his connection with the Baron; and he thought over a letter he had received from his foreman that morning, informing him that it was rumored at Screwstown that Mr. Dyce, his rival, was about to have new machinery, on an improved principle; and that Mr. Dyce had already gone up to town, it was supposed with the intention of concluding a purchase for a patent discovery to be applied to the new machinery, and which that gentleman had publicly declared in the corn-market, "would shut up Mr. Avenel's factory before the year was out." As this menacing epistle recurred to him, Dick felt his desire to yawn incontinently checked. His brow grew very dark; and he walked with restless strides, on and on, till he found himself in the Strand. He then got into an omnibus, and proceeded to the city, wherein he spent the rest of the day, looking over machines and foundries, and trying in vain to find out what diabolical invention the over-competition of Mr. Dyce had got hold of. "If," said Dick Avenel to himself, as he returned fretfully homeward – "if a man like me, who has done so much for British industry and go-ahead principles, is to be catawampously champed up by a mercenary selfish cormorant of a capitalist like that interloping blockhead in drab breeches, Tom Dyce, all I can say is, that the sooner this cursed old country goes to the dogs the better pleased I shall be. I wash my hands of it."

CHAPTER XXI

Randal's mind was made up. All he had learned in regard to Levy had confirmed his resolves or dissipated his scruples. He had started from the improbability that Peschiera would offer, and the still greater improbability that Peschiera would pay him ten thousand pounds for such information or aid as he could bestow in furthering the Count's object. But when Levy took such proposals entirely on himself, the main question to Randal became this – could it be Levy's interest to make so considerable a sacrifice? Had the Baron implied only friendly sentiments as his motives, Randal would have felt sure he was to be taken in; but the usurer's frank assurance that it would answer to him in the long run to concede to Randal terms so advantageous, altered the case, and led our young philosopher to look at the affair with calm contemplative eyes. Was it sufficiently obvious that Levy counted on an adequate return? Might he calculate on reaping help by the bushel if he sowed it by the handful? The result of Randal's cogitations was, that the Baron might fairly deem himself no wasteful sower. In the first place, it was clear that Levy, not without reasonable ground, believed that he could soon replace, with exceeding good interest, any sum he might advance to Randal, out of the wealth which Randal's prompt information might bestow on Levy's client, the Count; and, secondly, Randal's self-esteem was immense, and could he but succeed in securing a pecuniary independence on the instant, to free him from the slow drudgery of the bar, or from a precarious reliance on Audley Egerton, as a politician out of power – his convictions of rapid triumphs in public life were as strong as if whispered by an angel, or promised by a fiend. On such triumphs, with all the social position they would secure, Levy might well calculate for repayment, through a thousand indirect channels. Randal's sagacity detected that, through all the good-natured or liberal actions ascribed to the usurer, Levy had steadily pursued his own interests – he saw that Levy meant to get him into his power, and use his abilities as instruments for digging new mines, in which Baron Levy would claim the right of large royalties. But at that thought Randal's pale lip curled disdainfully; he confided too much in his own powers not to think that he could elude the grasp of the usurer, whenever it suited him to do so. Thus, on a survey, all conscience hushed itself – his mind rushed buoyantly on to anticipations of the future. He saw the hereditary estates regained – no matter how mortgaged – for the moment still his own – legally his own – yielding for the present what would suffice for competence to one of a few wants, and freeing his name from that title of Adventurer, which is so prodigally given in rich old countries to those who have no estates but their brains. He thought of Violante but as the civilized trader thinks of a trifling coin, of a glass bead, which he exchanges with some barbarian for gold dust; he thought of Frank Hazeldean, married to the foreign woman of beggared means, and repute that had known the breath of scandal – married, and living on post-obit installments of the Casino property; he thought of the poor Squire's resentment; his avarice swept from the lands annexed to Rood on to the broad fields of Hazeldean; he thought of Avenel, of Lansmere, of Parliament; with one hand he grasped fortune, with the next power. "And yet I entered on life with no patrimony – (save a ruined hall and a barren waste) – no patrimony but knowledge. I have but turned knowledge from books to men; for books may give fame after death, but men give us power in life." And all the while he thus ruminated, his act was speeding his purpose. Though it was but in a miserable hack-cab that he erected airy scaffoldings round airy castles, still the miserable hack-cab was flying fast, to secure the first foot of solid ground whereon to transfer the mental plan of the architect to foundations of positive slime and clay. The cab stopped at the door of Lord Lansmere's house. Randal had suspected Violante to be there; he resolved to ascertain. Randal descended from his vehicle and rang the bell. The lodge-keeper opened the great wooden gates.

"I have called to see the young lady staying here – the foreign young lady."

Lady Lansmere had been too confident as to the security of her roof to condescend to give any orders to her servants with regard to her guest, and the lodge-keeper answered directly —

"At home, I believe, sir. I rather think she is in the garden with my lady."

"I see," said Randal. And he did see the form of Violante at a distance. "But since she is walking, I will not disturb her at present. I will call another day."

The lodge-keeper bowed respectfully, Randal jumped into his cab – "To Curzon-street – quick!"

CHAPTER XXII

Harley had made one notable oversight in that appeal to Beatrice's better and gentler nature, which he intrusted to the advocacy of Leonard – a scheme in itself very characteristic of Harley's romantic temper, and either wise or foolish, according as his indulgent theory of human idiosyncracies in general, and of those peculiar to Beatrice di Negra in especial, was the dream of an enthusiast, or the inductive conclusion of a sound philosopher.

Harley had warned Leonard not to fall in love with the Italian – he had forgotten to warn the Italian not to fall in love with Leonard; nor had he ever anticipated the probability of that event. This is not to be very much wondered at; for if there be any thing on which the most sensible men are dull-eyed, where those eyes are not lightened by jealousy, it is as to the probabilities of another male creature being beloved. All, the least vain of the whiskered gender, think it prudent to guard themselves against being too irresistible to the fair sex; and each says of his friend, "Good fellow enough, but the last man for that woman to fall in love with!"

But certainly there appeared on the surface more than ordinary cause for Harley's blindness in the special instance of Leonard.

Whatever Beatrice's better qualities, she was generally esteemed worldly and ambitious. She was pinched in circumstances – she was luxurious and extravagant; how was it likely that she could distinguish any aspirant, of the humble birth and fortunes of the young peasant author? As a coquette she might try to win his admiration and attract his fancy; but her own heart would surely be guarded in the triple mail of pride, poverty, and the conventional opinions of the world in which she lived. Had Harley thought it possible that Madame di Negra could stoop below her station, and love, not wisely, but too well, he would rather have thought that the object would be some brilliant adventurer of fashion – some one who could turn against herself all the arts of deliberate fascination, and all the experience bestowed by frequent conquest. One so simple as Leonard – so young and so new! Harley L'Estrange would have smiled at himself if the idea of that image subjugating the ambitious woman to the disinterested love of a village maid, had once crossed his mind. Nevertheless, so it was, and precisely from those causes which would have seemed to Harley to forbid the weakness.

It was that fresh, pure heart – it was that simple, earnest sweetness – it was that contrast in look, in tone, in sentiment, and in reasonings, to all that had jaded and disgusted her in the circle of her admirers – it was all this that captivated Beatrice at the first interview with Leonard. Here was what she had confessed to the skeptical Randal she had dreamed and sighed for. Her earliest youth had passed into abhorrent marriage, without the soft, innocent crisis of human life – virgin love. Many a wooer might have touched her vanity, pleased her fancy, excited her ambition – her heart had never been awakened: it woke now. The world, and the years that the world had wasted, seemed to fleet away as a cloud. She was as if restored to the blush and the sigh of youth – the youth of the Italian maid. As in the restoration of our golden age is the spell of poetry with us all, so, such was the spell of the poet himself on her.

Oh, how exquisite was that brief episode in the life of the woman palled with the "hack sights and sounds" of worldly life! How strangely happy were those hours, when, lured on by her silent sympathy, the young scholar spoke of his early struggles between circumstance and impulse, musing amidst the flowers, and hearkening to the fountain: or of his wanderings in the desolate, lamp-lit streets, while the vision of Chatterton's glittering eyes shone dread through the friendless shadows. And as he spoke, whether of his hopes or his fears, her looks dwelt fondly on the young face, that varied between pride and sadness – pride ever so gentle, and sadness ever so nobly touching. She was never weary of gazing on that brow, with its quiet power: but her lids dropped before those eyes, with their serene, unfathomable passion. She felt, as they haunted her, what a deep and holy thing love in such souls must be. Leonard never spoke to her of Helen – that reserve every reader can comprehend. To natures like his, first love is a mystery; to confide it is to profane. But he fulfilled his commission of interesting her in the exile and his daughter. And his description of them brought tears to her eyes. She inly resolved not to aid Peschiera in his designs on Violante. She forgot for the moment that her own fortune was to depend on the success of those designs. Levy had arranged so that she was not reminded of her poverty by creditors – she knew not how. She knew nothing of business. She gave herself up to the delight of the present hour, and to vague prospects of a future, associated with that young image – with that face of a guardian angel that she saw before her, fairest in the moments of absence: for in those moments came the life of fairy land, when we shut our eyes on the world, and see through the haze of golden reverie. Dangerous, indeed, to Leonard would have been the soft society of Beatrice di Negra, had his heart not been wholly devoted to one object, and had not his ideal of woman been from that object one sole and indivisible reflection. But Beatrice guessed not this barrier between herself and him. Amidst the shadows that he conjured up from his past life, she beheld no rival form. She saw him lonely in the world as she was herself. And in his lowly birth, his youth, in the freedom from presumption which characterized him in all things (save that confidence in his intellectual destinies which is the essential attribute of genius), she but grew the bolder by the belief that, even if he loved her, he would not dare to hazard the avowal.

And thus, one day, yielding as she had been ever wont to yield, to the impulse of her quick Italian heart – how she never remembered – in what words she could never recall – she spoke – she owned her love – she pleaded, with tears and blushes, for love in return. All that passed was to her as a dream – a dream from which she woke with a fierce sense of agony, of humiliation – woke as the "woman scorned." No matter how gratefully, how tenderly, Leonard had replied – the reply was refusal. For the first time she learned she had a rival; that all he could give of love was long since, from his boyhood, given to another. For the first time in her life that ardent nature knew jealousy, its torturing stings, its thirst for vengeance, its tempest of loving hate. But, to outward appearance, silent and cold she stood as marble. Words that sought to soothe fell on her ear unheeded: they were drowned by the storm within. Pride was the first feeling that dominated the warring elements that raged in her soul. She tore her hand from that which clasped hers with so loyal a respect. She could have spurned the form that knelt, not for love, but for pardon, at her feet. She pointed to the door with the gesture of an insulted queen. She knew no more till she was alone. Then came that rapid flash of conjecture peculiar to the storms of jealousy; that which seems to single from all nature the one object to dread and to destroy; the conjecture so often false, yet received at once by our convictions as the revelation of instinctive truth. He to whom she had humbled herself loved another; whom but Violante? – whom else, young and beautiful, had he named in the record of his life? None! And he had sought to interest her, Beatrice di Negra, in the object of his love – hinted at dangers, which Beatrice knew too well – implied trust in Beatrice's will to protect. Blind fool that she had been! This, then, was the reason why he had come, day after day, to Beatrice's house; this was the charm that had drawn him thither; this – she pressed her hands to her burning temples, as if to stop the torture of thought. Suddenly a voice was heard below, the door opened, and Randal Leslie entered.