Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol IV. No. XX. January, 1852.

Master was vexed and anxious – almost angry, and yet full of solicitude. The Signor Dellombra was a courtly gentleman, and spoke with great respect and sympathy of mistress’s being so ill. The African wind had been blowing for some days (they had told him at his hotel of the Maltese Cross), and he knew that it was often hurtful. He hoped the beautiful lady would recover soon. He begged permission to retire, and to renew his visit when he should have the happiness of hearing that she was better. Master would not allow of this, and they dined alone.

He withdrew early. Next day he called at the gate, on horseback, to inquire for mistress. He did so two or three times in that week.

What I observed myself, and what la bella Carolina told me, united to explain to me that master had now set his mind on curing mistress of her fanciful terror. He was all kindness, but he was sensible and firm. He reasoned with her, that to encourage such fancies was to invite melancholy, if not madness. That it rested with herself to be herself. That if she once resisted her strange weakness, so successfully as to receive the Signor Dellombra as an English lady would receive any other guest, it was forever conquered. To make an end, the Signor came again, and mistress received him without marked distress (though with constraint and apprehension still), and the evening passed serenely. Master was so delighted with this change, and so anxious to confirm it, that the Signor Dellombra became a constant guest. He was accomplished in pictures, books, and music; and his society, in any grim palazzo, would have been welcome.

I used to notice, many times, that mistress was not quite recovered. She would cast down her eyes and droop her head, before the Signor Dellombra, or would look at him with a terrified and fascinated glance, as if his presence had some evil influence or power upon her. Turning from her to him, I used to see him in the shaded gardens, or the large half-lighted sala, looking, as I might say, “fixedly upon her out of darkness.” But, truly, I had not forgotten la bella Carolina’s words describing the face in the dream.

After his second visit I heard master say:

“Now see, my dear Clara, it’s over! Dellombra has come and gone, and your apprehension is broken like glass.”

“Will he – will he ever come again?” asked mistress.

“Again? Why, surely, over and over again! Are you cold?” (She shivered).

“No, dear – but – he terrifies me: are you sure that he need come again?”

“The surer for the question, Clara!” replied master, cheerfully.

But, he was very hopeful of her complete recovery now, and grew more and more so every day. She was beautiful. He was happy.

“All goes well, Baptista?” he would say to me again.

“Yes, signore, thank God; very well.”

We were all (said the Genoese courier, constraining himself to speak a little louder), we were all at Rome for the Carnival. I had been out, all day, with a Sicilian, a friend of mine and a courier, who was there with an English family. As I returned at night to our hotel, I met the little Carolina, who never stirred from home alone, running distractedly along the Corso.

“Carolina! What’s the matter?”

“O Baptista! Oh, for the Lord’s sake! where is my mistress?”

“Mistress, Carolina?”

“Gone since morning – told me, when master went out on his day’s journey, not to call her, for she was tired, with not resting in the night (having been in pain), and would lie in bed until the evening; then get up refreshed. She is gone! – she is gone! Master has come back, broken down the door, and she is gone! My beautiful, my good, my innocent mistress!”

The pretty little one so cried, and raved, and tore herself, that I could not have held her, but for her swooning on my arm as if she had been shot. Master came up – in manner, face, or voice, no more the master that I knew, than I was he. He took me (I laid the little one upon her bed in the hotel, and left her with the chamber-women), in a carriage, furiously through the darkness, across the desolate Campagna. When it was day, and we stopped at a miserable post-house, all the horses had been hired twelve hours ago, and sent away in different directions. Mark me! – by the Signor Dellombra, who had passed there in a carriage, with a frightened English lady crouching in one corner.

I never heard (said the Genoese courier, drawing a long breath) that she was ever traced beyond that spot. All I know is, that she vanished into infamous oblivion, with the dreaded face beside her that she had seen in her dream.

“What do you call that?” said the German courier, triumphantly; “Ghosts! There are no ghosts there! What do you call this, that I am going to tell you? Ghosts? There are no ghosts here!”

I took an engagement once (pursued the German courier) with an English gentleman, elderly and a bachelor, to travel through my country, my Fatherland. He was a merchant who traded with my country and knew the language, but who had never been there since he was a boy – as I judge, some sixty years before.

His name was James, and he had a twin-brother John, also a bachelor. Between these brothers there was a great affection. They were in business together at Goodman’s Fields, but they did not live together. Mr. James dwelt in Poland-street, turning out of Oxford-street, London. Mr. John resided by Epping Forest.

Mr. James and I were to start for Germany in about a week. The exact day depended on business. Mr. John came to Poland-street (where I was staying in the house), to pass that week with Mr. James. But, he said to his brother on the second day, “I don’t feel very well, James. There’s not much the matter with me; but I think I am a little gouty. I’ll go home and put myself under the care of my old housekeeper, who understands my ways. If I get quite better, I’ll come back and see you before you go. If I don’t feel well enough to resume my visit where I leave it off, why you will come and see me before you go.” Mr. James, of course, said he would, and they shook hands – both hands, as they always did – and Mr. John ordered out his old-fashioned chariot and rumbled home.

It was on the second night after that – that is to say, the fourth in the week – when I was awoke out of my sound sleep by Mr. James coming into my bedroom in his flannel-gown, with a lighted candle. He sat upon the side of my bed, and looking at me, said:

“Wilhelm, I have reason to think I have got some strange illness upon me.”

I then perceived that there was a very unusual expression in his face.

“Wilhelm,” said he, “I am not afraid or ashamed to tell you, what I might be afraid or ashamed to tell another man. You come from a sensible country, where mysterious things are inquired into, and are not settled to have been weighed and measured or to have been unweighable and immeasurable – or in either case to have been completely disposed of, for all time – ever so many years ago. I have just now seen the phantom of my brother.”

I confess (said the German courier) that it gave me a little tingling of the blood to hear it.

“I have just now seen,” Mr. James repeated, looking full at me, that I might see how collected he was, “the phantom of my brother John. I was sitting up in bed, unable to sleep, when it came into my room, in a white dress, and, regarding me earnestly, passed up to the end of the room, glanced at some papers on my writing-desk, turned, and, still looking earnestly at me as it passed the bed, went out at the door. Now, I am not in the least mad, and am not in the least disposed to invest that phantom with an external existence out of myself. I think it is a warning to me that I am ill; and I think I had better be bled.”

I got out of bed directly (said the German courier) and began to get on my clothes, begging him not to be alarmed, and telling him that I would go myself to the doctor. I was just ready, when we heard a loud knocking and ringing at the street door. My room being an attic at the back, and Mr. James’s being the second-floor room in the front, we went down to his room, and put up the window, to see what was the matter.

“Is that Mr. James?” said a man below, falling back to the opposite side of the way to look up.

“It is,” said Mr. James; “and you are my brother’s man, Robert.”

“Yes, sir. I am sorry to say, sir, that Mr. John is ill. He is very bad, sir. It is even feared that he may be lying at the point of death. He wants to see you, sir. I have a chaise here. Pray come to him. Pray lose no time.”

Mr. James and I looked at one another. “Wilhelm,” said he, “this is strange. I wish you to come with me!” I helped him to dress, partly there and partly in the chaise; and no grass grew under the horses’ iron shoes between Poland-street and the Forest.

Now, mind! (said the German courier). I went with Mr. James into his brother’s room, and I saw and heard myself what follows.

His brother lay upon his bed, at the upper end of a long bed-chamber. His old housekeeper was there, and others were there: I think three others were there, if not four, and they had been with him since early in the afternoon. He was in white, like the figure – necessarily so, because he had his night-dress on. He looked like the figure – necessarily so, because he looked earnestly at his brother when he saw him come into the room.

But, when his brother reached the bed-side, he slowly raised himself in bed, and looking full upon him, said these words:

“James, you have seen me before, to-night, and you know it!”

And so died!

I waited, when the German courier ceased, to hear something said of this strange story. The silence was unbroken. I looked round, and the five couriers were gone: so noiselessly that the ghostly mountain might have absorbed them into its eternal snows. By this time, I was by no means in a mood to sit alone in that awful scene, with the chill air coming solemnly upon me – or, if I may tell the truth, to sit alone anywhere. So I went back into the convent-parlor, and, finding the American gentleman still disposed to relate the biography of the Honorable Ananias Dodger, heard it all out.

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. 5

CHAPTER VII

Randal advanced – “I fear, Signior Riccabocca, that I am guilty of some want of ceremony.”

“To dispense with ceremony is the most delicate mode of conferring a compliment,” replied the urbane Italian, as he recovered from his first surprise at Randal’s sudden address, and extended his hand.

Violante bowed her graceful head to the young man’s respectful salutation. “I am on my way to Hazeldean,” resumed Randal, “and, seeing you in the garden, could not resist this intrusion.”

Riccabocca. – “You come from London? Stirring times for you English, but I do not ask you the news. No news can affect us.”

Randal (softly). “Perhaps – yes.”

Riccabocca (startled). – “How?”

Violante. – “Surely he speaks of Italy, and news from that country affects you still, my father.”

Riccabocca. – “Nay, nay, nothing affects me like this country; its east wind might affect a pyramid! Draw your mantle round you, child, and go in; the air has suddenly grown chill.”

Violante smiled on her father, glanced uneasily toward Randal’s grave brow, and went slowly toward the house.

Riccabocca, after waiting some moments in silence, as if expecting Randal to speak, said with affected carelessness. “So you think that you have news that might affect me? Corpo di Bacco! I am curious to learn what!”

“I may be mistaken – that depends on your answer to one question. Do you know the Count of Peschiera?”

Riccabocca winced, and turned pale. He could not baffle the watchful eye of the questioner.

“Enough,” said Randal; “I see that I am right. Believe in my sincerity. I speak but to warn and to serve you. The Count seeks to discover the retreat of a countryman and kinsman of his own.”

“And for what end?” cried Riccabocca, thrown off his guard, and his breast dilated, his crest rose, and his eye flashed; valor and defiance broke from habitual caution and self-control. “But pooh,” he added, striving to regain his ordinary and half-ironical calm, “it matters not to me. I grant, sir, that I know the Count di Peschiera; but what has Dr. Riccabocca to do with the kinsman of so grand a personage?”

“Dr. Riccabocca – nothing. But – ” here Randal put his lips close to the Italian’s ear, and whispered a brief sentence. Then retreating a step, but laying his hand on the exile’s shoulder, he added – “Need I say that your secret is safe with me?”

Riccabocca made no answer. His eyes rested on the ground musingly.

Randal continued – “And I shall esteem it the highest honor you can bestow on me, to be permitted to assist you in forestalling danger.”

Riccabocca (slowly). – “Sir, I thank you; you have my secret, and I feel assured it is safe, for I speak to an English gentleman. There may be family reasons why I should avoid the Count di Peschiera; and, indeed, He is safest from shoals who steers clearest of his – relations.”

The poor Italian regained his caustic smile as he uttered that wise, villainous Italian maxim.

Randal. – “I know little of the Count of Peschiera save from the current talk of the world. He is said to hold the estates of a kinsman who took part in a conspiracy against the Austrian power.”

Riccabocca. – “It is true. Let that content him; what more does he desire? You spoke of forestalling danger? What danger? I am on the soil of England, and protected by its laws.”

Randal. – “Allow me to inquire if, had the kinsman no child, the Count di Peschiera would be legitimate and natural heir to the estates he holds?”

Riccabocca. – “He would. What then?”

Randal. – “Does that thought suggest no danger to the child of the kinsman?”

Riccabocca recoiled, and gasped forth, “The child! You do not mean to imply that this man, infamous though he be, can contemplate the crime of an assassin?”

Randal paused perplexed. His ground was delicate. He knew not what causes of resentment the exile entertained against the Count. He knew not whether Riccabocca would not assent to an alliance that might restore him to his country – and he resolved to feel his way with precaution.

“I did not,” said he, smiling gravely, “mean to insinuate so horrible a charge against a man whom I have never seen. He seeks you – that is all I know. I imagine from his general character, that in this search he consults his interest. Perhaps all matters might be conciliated by an interview!”

“An interview!” exclaimed Riccabocca; “there is but one way we should meet – foot to foot, and hand to hand.”

“Is it so? Then you would not listen to the Count if he proposed some amicable compromise; if, for instance, he was a candidate for the hand of your daughter?”

The poor Italian, so wise and so subtle in his talk, was as rash and blind when it came to action, as if he had been born in Ireland, and nourished on potatoes and Repeal. He bared his whole soul to the merciless eye of Randal.

“My daughter!” he exclaimed. “Sir, your question is an insult.”

Randal’s way became clear at once. “Forgive me,” he said, mildly; “I will tell you frankly all that I know. I am acquainted with the Count’s sister. I have some little influence over her. It was she who informed me that the Count had come here, bent upon discovering your refuge, and resolved to wed your daughter. This is the danger of which I spoke. And when I asked your permission to aid in forestalling it, I only intended to suggest that it might be wise to find some securer home, and that I, if permitted to know that home, and to visit you, could apprise you, from time to time, of the Count’s plans and movements.”

“Sir, I thank you sincerely,” said Riccabocca, with emotion; “but am I not safe here?”

“I doubt it. Many people have visited the Squire in the shooting season, who will have heard of you – perhaps seen you, and who are likely to meet the Count in London. And Frank Hazeldean, too, who knows the Count’s sister – ”

“True, true,” interrupted Riccabocca. “I see, I see. I will consider. I will reflect. Meanwhile you are going to Hazeldean. Do not say a word to the Squire. He knows not the secret you have discovered.”

With those words Riccabocca turned slightly away, and Randal took the hint to depart.

“At all times command and rely on me,” said the young traitor, and he regained the pale to which he had fastened his horse.

As he remounted, he cast his eyes toward the place where he had left Riccabocca. The Italian was still standing there. Presently the form of Jackeymo was seen emerging from the shrubs. Riccabocca turned hastily round, recognized his servant, uttered an exclamation loud enough to reach Randal’s ear, and then catching Jackeymo by the arm, disappeared with him amidst the deeper recesses of the garden.

“It will be indeed in my favor,” thought Randal, as he rode on, “if I can get them into the neighborhood of London – all occasion there to woo, and, if expedient, to win – the heiress.”

CHAPTER VIII

“By the Lord Harry!” cried the Squire, as he stood with his wife in the park, on a visit of inspection to some first-rate South-Downs just added to his stock; “by the Lord, if that is not Randal Leslie trying to get into the park at the back gate! Hollo, Randal! you must come round by the lodge, my boy,” said he. “You see this gate is locked to keep out trespassers.”

“A pity,” said Randal. “I like short-cuts, and you have shut up a very short one.”

“So the trespassers said,” quoth the Squire “but Stirn would not hear of it; – valuable man Stirn. But ride round to the lodge. Put up your horse, and you’ll join us before we can get to the house.”

Randal nodded and smiled, and rode briskly on.

The Squire rejoined his Harry.

“Ah, William,” said she anxiously, “though certainly Randal Leslie means well, I always dread his visits.”

“So do I, in one sense,” quoth the Squire, “for he always carries away a bank-note for Frank.”

“I hope he is really Frank’s friend,” said Mrs. Hazeldean.

“Whose else can he be? Not his own, poor fellow, for he will never accept a shilling from me, though his grandmother was as good a Hazeldean as I am. But, zounds! I like his pride, and his economy too. As for Frank – ”

“Hush, William!” cried Mrs. Hazeldean, and put her fair hand before the Squire’s mouth. The Squire was softened, and kissed the fair hand gallantly – perhaps he kissed the lips too; at all events, the worthy pair were walking lovingly arm-in-arm when Randal joined them.

He did not affect to perceive a certain coldness in the manner of Mrs. Hazeldean, but began immediately to talk to her about Frank; praise that young gentleman’s appearance; expatiate on his health, his popularity, and his good gifts, personal and mental; and this with so much warmth, that any dim and undeveloped suspicions Mrs. Hazeldean might have formed soon melted away.

Randal continued to make himself thus agreeable, until the Squire, persuaded that his young kinsman was a first-rate agriculturist, insisted upon carrying him off to the home-farm, and Harry turned toward the house to order Randal’s room to be got ready: “For,” said Randal, “knowing that you will excuse my morning dress, I ventured to invite myself to dine and sleep at the Hall.”

On approaching the farm buildings, Randal was seized with the terror of an impostor; for, despite all the theoretical learning on Bucolics and Georgics with which he had dazzled the Squire, poor Frank, so despised, would have beat him hollow when it came to judging of the points of an ox or the show of a crop.

“Ha, ha!” cried the Squire, chuckling, “I long to see how you’ll astonish Stirn. Why, you’ll guess in a moment where we put the top-dressing; and when you come to handle my short-horns, I dare swear you’ll know to a pound how much oilcake has gone into their sides.”

“Oh, you do me too much honor – indeed you do. I only know the general principles of agriculture – the details are eminently interesting; but I have not had the opportunity to acquire them.”

“Stuff!” cried the Squire. “How can a man know general principles unless he has first studied the details? You are too modest, my boy. Ho! there’s Stirn looking out for us!”

Randal saw the grim visage of Stirn peering out of a cattle-shed, and felt undone. He made a desperate rush toward changing the Squire’s humor.

“Well, sir, perhaps Frank may soon gratify your wish, and turn farmer himself.”

“Eh!” quoth the Squire, stopping short. “What now?”

“Suppose he was to marry?”

“I’d give him the two best farms on the property rent free. Ha, ha! Has he seen the girl yet? I’d leave him free to choose, sir. I chose for myself – every man should. Not but what Miss Sticktorights is an heiress, and, I hear, a very decent girl, and that would join the two properties, and put an end to that lawsuit about the right of way, which began in the reign of King Charles the Second, and is likely otherwise to last till the day of judgment. But never mind her; let Frank choose to please himself.”

“I’ll not fail to tell him so, sir. I did fear you might have some prejudices. But here we are at the farm-yard.”

“Burn the farm-yard! How can I think of farm-yards when you talk of Frank’s marriage? Come on – this way. What were you saying about prejudices?”

“Why, you might wish him to marry an Englishwoman, for instance.”

“English! Good heavens, sir, does he mean to marry a Hindoo?”

“Nay, I don’t know that he means to marry at all: I am only surmising, but if he did fall in love with a foreigner – ”

“A foreigner! Ah, then Harry was – ” The Squire stopped short.

“Who might, perhaps,” observed Randal – not truly, if he referred to Madame di Negra – “who might, perhaps, speak very little English?”

“Lord ha’ mercy!”

“And a Roman Catholic – ”

“Worshiping idols, and roasting people who don’t worship them.”

“Signior Riccabocca is not so bad as that.”

“Rickeybockey! Well, if it was his daughter! But not speak English! and not go to the parish church! By George! if Frank thought of such a thing, I’d cut him off with a shilling. Don’t talk to me, sir; I would. I’m a mild man, and an easy man; but when I say a thing, I say it, Mr. Leslie. Oh, but it is a jest – you are laughing at me. There’s no such painted good-for-nothing creature in Frank’s eye, eh?”

“Indeed, sir, if ever I find there is, I will give you notice in time. At present I was only trying to ascertain what you wished for a daughter in-law. You said you had no prejudice.”

“No more I have – not a bit of it.”

“You don’t like a foreigner and a Catholic?”

“Who the devil would?”

“But if she had rank and title?”

“Rank and title! Bubble and squeak! No, not half so good as bubble and squeak. English beef and good cabbage. But foreign rank and title! – foreign cabbage and beef! – foreign bubble and foreign squeak!” And the Squire made a wry face, and spat forth his disgust and indignation.

“You must have an Englishwoman?”

“Of course?”

“Money?”

“Don’t care, provided she is a tidy, sensible, active lass, with a good character for her dower.”

“Character – ah, that is indispensable?”

“I should think so, indeed. A Mrs. Hazeldean of Hazeldean; you frighten me. He’s not going to run off with a divorced woman, or a – ”

The Squire stopped, and looked so red in the face, that Randal feared he might be seized with apoplexy before Frank’s crimes had made him alter his will.

Therefore he hastened to relieve Mr. Hazeldean’s mind, and assured him that he had been only talking at random; that Frank was in the habit, indeed, of seeing foreign ladies occasionally, as all persons in the London world were; but that he was sure Frank would never marry without the full consent and approval of his parents. He ended by repeating his assurance that he would warn the Squire if ever it became necessary. Still, however, he left Mr. Hazeldean so disturbed and uneasy, that that gentleman forgot all about the farm, and went moodily on in the opposite direction, re-entering the park at its farther extremity. As soon as they approached the house, the Squire hastened to shut himself with his wife in full parental consultation; and Randal, seated upon a bench on the terrace, revolved the mischief he had done, and its chances of success.