Dariel: A Romance of Surrey

"If it must be so, if you must leave England," I asked with a very grim smile, for what on earth would become of me without her, and I did not even belong to the Alpine Club, "why should you be so unhappy about it? I fear there is no one in this country whom it would pain you much to leave. I fear that you find all English people rather dull, and cold, and uninteresting, and you will be too glad to be quit of them."

"I hear that they are cold, but I do not perceive it." Her glance as she said this was beyond interpretation; could it mean any cruel check to me? "They are the first nation of all mankind, my father has declared to me, many times; but of such matters I have not yet arrived to think. The thing that makes me full of fear about going from this safe land is, that though the people may be dull and cold, as you do describe them, among them there is law and justice, and the wicked men are hanged whenever they require it. But, alas, my father says that among his noble people, no one can be sure of that."

"Dariel," I exclaimed with amazement, having made up my mind that her nature was all softness and all sweetness, "surely you would never wish to be sure of anybody being hanged."

"I would never go to see it, as the people do in England, and I am not at all convinced that it ought to be done here. But in lands where the law of men's lives is revenge, even upon those of their own family, what else is there to prevent them from committing murder? And that which terrifies me from all pleasure of seeing the land of my birth consists of that. Our family, the highest of the Lesghian race, have not that most wicked rule of blood-revenge; but all the other tribes around them have; and I am in the most dreadful alarm that my father has done something to make him subject to that barbarous, abominable, horrible – oh, what shall I do? what shall I do?"

Once more, I made offer to administer to her the kindest and softest consolation; but she turned away sobbing, yet concealing it, as if it could be no concern of mine. And this made me feel – I should be sorry to say how.

I believe that there is a bit of sulkiness in love, even with a man; and perhaps a large lump in a woman, because they are obliged to let it grow. At any-rate I held my tongue. If her ladyship did not think me worthy of her confidence after all I felt, perhaps there was somebody else who deserved it. I knocked my stick against my trousers; and it almost seemed to me, as if I should like to whistle, if I mattered so little to the wind and sky.

"You are offended! You are angry with me!" cried Dariel turning round, as if she were the larger part of me recoiling upon all the littleness. "But I cannot tell you what I do not know. Everything is so dark to me."

Now whether it was mean of me, or noble, depends upon the right view of the case; but before she could repent of being kind, I got hold of her hand, and kissed it so as to assure her of my forgiveness. Then the loveliest colour ever seen on earth arose in her face, and in her eyes there was the sweetest light just for a moment, and then she trembled, and I was afraid of myself.

By mutual accord we dropped that point. But I knew that she felt for the first time in her heart that the whole of mine belonged to it. Crafty love and maiden fear combined to let that bide a while.

"I fear that it is too selfish of me, and too great trespass upon your good-will," she said without looking at me again, "if I ask you to help me in this matter. But you do admire my father, I think. Nobody can meet him without that."

"He is the noblest and the grandest man I have ever had the honour of speaking to. I wish that I could only do something for him. There can be no trespass on my good-will. Only tell me plainly."

"This is all I know, and I dare not ask more, for it is not considered good to tell me. There is one day in the year of great sorrow and bitterness, through something that has happened in my father's life. It is something that he himself has done, though no one could believe that he would ever commit a sin. Last year, and every year before that until now, I was away and saw nothing of it, being under education with good ladies of great learning. But now that is finished, and it was not possible for the tribulation to be concealed from me. Long before that I had known there was something of very great misfortune and calamity to us; but I have never been permitted to hear more about it; and how can I learn, of whom can I enquire? Stepan knows, I am almost sure of that; and perhaps Baboushka does – but as for telling me – it appears that with our people, the young maidens are kept out of reach of all knowledge; but I have been brought up in England, and it is not curiosity, Mr. Cran-lee, you must not be in such error as to think that I have curiosity. It is anxiety, and love of my dear father, which any one of any age or nation has a right to; and if he is to go back into that land of danger without my knowing what I have to dread, or what to save him from, how can I be of any use? He had better have no daughter."

"Shall I go and ask him all about it? He may think what he likes of me; if it will be of any good to you. No, that is not exactly what I mean. What I mean is, that I will take any row upon myself."

"I can scarcely understand what the English is of that." Oh, Dariel, can even you tell fibs? "But if it is anything, Mr. Cran-lee, of a proposal unpleasant to you, and offering unkindness to my father, it is the very last thing I would desire you to do. And what would become of you, when he regarded you, as he has the power of doing to those – to those – who show him what you call impertinence? What I was thinking of was quite different to that. And though it would give some trouble, which I have no right to seek from you, there could not be anything unbecoming in it. I thought of it last night, when I was in such sorrow that I could not sleep with any happiness. My father has one great friend in London, a gentleman known to him in our native land, and who was a great part of his coming to this country. He understands everything of our situation here, and I have seen him several times. My father has told me to make application to him, if anything should arise, beyond his own assistance. The gentleman is not of our own rank of life, because he is of commerce, which we do not understand. Nevertheless he is very wealthy, and nothing can be more respected than that point in England. He is now entitled Signor Nicolo, because it is better among the nations with whom he has dealings with the precious stones. But by birth, and of language, and the ways of thinking, he has always been an Englishman of the name of Nickols. And he is of an integrity beyond all common foreign names. He resides in the best part of London, mentioned by your great Shakespeare, and still called Hatton Garden."

"And you would like me to go and see him?" I enquired with the greatest alacrity, perceiving a good chance now of discovering many things still mysterious; "Dariel, it shall be done to-morrow. Don't talk of trouble, I beseech you."

"It is not only that," she answered, already assuming her right to my services, which women are never very slow to do; "but also the difficulty that Signor Nicolo will have to perceive in what authority you come. It is not as if you bore any message, or power of enquiry from my father, for he would not wish at all that I should so employ myself. And if you do this for me, Mr. Cran-lee, you must bear in mind that my dear father will perhaps be much displeased that it has been done; and then although he is so just and righteous, he will inflict the whole of the blame upon you, because he can never find any fault with me. And then perhaps you would never come here any more."

"Oh, that wouldn't do at all!" I exclaimed, hoping that I saw a little sadness in her eyes; "I shall put old Nickols under a frightful pledge, penalty of his very biggest diamond, never to let that cat out of the bag."

"He is not old Nickols. He is quite a young man, very clever, and very agreeable. And he has promised to do anything in the world for me. Signor Nicolo is a gentleman you would be much delighted to converse with."

"Now you must know much better than that," thought I, "the more delightful he is, the more hateful to me." However, she did not seem to catch that clue; but went on, as unconscious as the wire in the air is of its own significance.

"The last time he was here, I told him of my ancient ruby cross, the one which I wear most frequently, when I come to pray for my father here. It has been preserved in our family from the period of the Crusades; when the noble prisoners, escaping to our mountains, converted our tribe from idolatry, and married the fairest of the maidens. Signor Nicolo desires much to see it; and I will lend it to you, Mr. Cran-lee; and then he will know that you have a right to ask concerning the questions of my father. And the great question that you go to enquire of is this, whether he can go back to the land belonging to him, without the greatest peril to his own dear life."

"It is my determination," I replied, with some infection of her freely imported English, so sweet was the voice conveying it, "not to leave this matter now, until I have got to the bottom of it. Is there any other Prince, or Jeweller, or Crusader, whose ins and outs I ought to know, before I can deal with him properly?" My wrath grew as its tongue rolled on; and what tongue but our own can tell it then?

"There is another gentleman who has expressed a desire for a knowledge of our position here, and a little interview with me," she spoke as if she lived without any dogs, or walls, or river, and I resolved at once to make Kuban and Orla as savage as Grab himself was; "but him I have not as yet beheld at all. And he is a Prince, as you suppose so well, possessed of great power already, even while he is so young, because of his courage and noble appearance, and desire to die for his country. He is a cousin of mine; and I have heard – but my father is most righteous in whatever he proposes."

She dropped her beautiful eyes with a blush; and it was lucky that she did not see me grind my teeth, for verily I must have looked – however, I controlled myself. "What's the fellow's name?" was the only thing I said.

"Prince Hafer, the Chief of the Ossets," she answered, looking with great surprise at me.

"Ossets! If I don't make bones of him," I muttered; "but pardon me. Can I have the cross at once? I cannot go to see your dear father to-night. Important business – I had quite forgotten. But yours shall be the first attended to. Oh, Dariel, Dariel, I must be off, before I say anything to vex you. Send Allai to-morrow night, and you shall hear of that young Nickols."

Probably she thought I was mad, and she was not far wrong, if she did so. She gave me the cross, to get rid of me perhaps; and I snatched her hand and kissed it, and was out of sight in no time.

CHAPTER XIV

THE RUBY CROSS

In all matters of love there is a vast amount of luck. That there is of course in all human affairs, as far as we can interpret them; but what I mean is a larger element of luck than in any of our other miseries; unless it be the still finer conflict, and far more enduring one, for money. Any one might have concluded, as I did, that it was all up now with every little hope I might have nursed of winning the favour of Dariel. Yielding to a sudden rush of jealousy, I had quitted her hastily and almost rudely, and broken my appointment with her father. It was true that her calmness and perfect indifference were enough to provoke a saint – if he ever falls in love; but how could she know that? Though certainly she ought to know it, if she ever thought of me in at all the proper vein. "What a fool I am! It will serve me quite right, if she never even condescends to glance at me again," I thought, as I wandered about in the dark, after going home at a great pace upon the wings of rage; "and just as I was getting on so nicely too! What is the use of my going to see that Nickols? A rogue no doubt, almost sure to be a rogue, for sticking a foreign tail on to his name. No doubt he cheats them of their diamonds and rubies. That is why he wants to see this cross. Worth a lot of money, I dare say. What an idiot I must be, to even think of that, when I remember where it has been so often! Oh, Dariel, Dariel! When I first saw your beautiful, enchanting, ravishing, idolatrous – idolised I mean, confound it all – who could have imagined that I should ever hold this badge of your faith – this symbol of your own high-minded, lofty-souled archetype – pish, there is no word to come near her! But, oh, shall I never come near her again?"

To cut short all discussion, I found myself in a frightful state both of head and of heart, and ready to do anything to bring matters to the crisis. Accordingly I said to Slemmick, who was in his right mind now, "Just look after things to-day; I'm obliged to go to London." He grinned, and I knew that he would be a tiger to any man lying down under a rick.

As yet my conceptions about jewellers, diamond-merchants, and the like were little more than a confusion of the Arabian Nights and Bond Street; so that it seemed to be quite a mistake when the policeman in a little dingy street pointed out a very common-looking house as the abode of Signor Nicolo. There was nothing to show that it contained as much as a paste shoe-buckle or a coral pin, and it struck me that if diamonds were tested there the light must proceed from the jewel itself. But perhaps it would be lighted up by Koh-i-noors, Stars of the South, and other glorious luminaries.

Not only the house but the inhabitants thereof appeared to be sadly in need of lighting up. How many times I rang, or at any rate pulled the long handle, I will not pretend to say; but at last an old woman, not at all too clean, showed me into a small square room, remarkable for nothing except that one end appeared to consist of polished steel. My card was taken upstairs, and presently Signor Nicolo himself appeared.

"Upon important business!" he said. "Ah, yes! Mr. George Cranleigh. Ah, yes, ah, yes!" He was rather a handsome little man, about forty years old, with dark eyes and complexion, wearing a black velvet blouse, gathered in with a belt, and a red scarf under it. Apparently an Englishman who desired to pass as a foreigner, and having a considerable share of Jewish blood might do so without much trouble. Whether his perpetual "Ah, yes" – which I shall not repeat half as much as he did – had first been assumed in imitation of some foreigner or had struck root into his tongue, as "You know," "Don't you see?" and other little expletives are wont, it is beyond my power to say.

"And this you have brought me. Ah, yes, ah, yes," he proceeded when I had explained my purpose, "to certify that the Prince desires me to impart to you all my knowledge concerning him. The rubies are very fine, and the trinket very ancient. They would not be set in silver now-a-days. But I do not perceive in them, Mr. Cranleigh, you will excuse my saying so, any message from the Prince to that effect."

"You mistake me, Signor," I answered with some warmth, for the man's affectation annoyed me, and I longed to call him "Jemmy Nickols," as his God-fathers and God-mothers meant him to be called; "I said nothing about Sûr Imar, who makes no pretence to be called a Prince," – that was a little rap at Jemmy, – "it is his daughter who has sent me to you, because she is most anxious and miserable about her father. What she wants to know is this – can he return to his native land, from which he has been so long banished, without incurring very great danger? You can tell me or not, just as you please. The question lies between you and her. She has always believed you to be her true friend. She cannot come to see you herself, of course, and her father might be angry if she tried to do so; and he would know your hand if you wrote to her. It appears to me that she has a right to ask."

"Ah, yes. She has a right to ask; and more than that, it is her place to ask, that she may know how to act about it. On the other hand, the point for me is – have I any right to tell?"

I began to respect the man more, as I perceived that he really wished to do what was right, but scarcely saw the way to it, through some little complication. "Signor, I am not in any hurry," I observed.

"Ah, you cannot understand," he said, as if I had no power, even if I had a right, to put my tongue in; "it is no reproach to you; but a young man who has never been among such things ought to thank his good stars, and keep out of them. You English are so stiff, you can allow for no ideas. You think that all the world must have the same right and wrong as you have."

"Now, Signor Nicolo," I replied, with admirable self-control, for I began to know all about him now, by the lights that break in as we go on in the dark, "if ever there was an Englishman, you are one." He looked at me steadily with eyes almost too dark for a pure-bred Englishman, and then seeing that I meant to make him proud he became proud, as he ought to be.

"Ah, yes!" he said first, from the force of habit, and then he went on, as became his birth-right. "Sir, I am an Englishman, and as proud of it as you are. But we are not popular among the smaller nations, because they have a lower standard. We give them everything in the way of trade, and they have not the calibre yet to enter into it. And I am very much afraid that they won't have that, till they have taken every farthing out of us. In spite of all lessons, we carry on still, as if all the world were full of our own ideas. And what comes of that? They believe through thick and thin that our only ambition is to rob them. My business lies chiefly on the Continent, and therefore I am Signor Nicolo."

Feeling the truth of this sad state of things, I took the hand he offered me. It was not his fault, but that of our blind rulers, that to do any business he must be of foreign blood. Still it was a new light shed upon me, for hitherto my belief had been that people unlucky enough to have to live upon the land, had to bear the brunt of that British suicide endowed with the catch-penny name Free-trade.

"Now, I am in this difficulty," continued the Signor, still employing the gesticulation he had learned; "on no account would I offend Prince Imar, – a Prince he is, whether he likes it not, – while on the other hand, I may be guilty of his death, if I stand upon scruples. And that would be a very poor requital, for I owe him my life, and am proud to owe it to a man so great and magnanimous. Crotchety perhaps, as all great men are, and sometimes even more than that; but take him all round, such a man as you won't see in a long day's ride, Mr. Cranleigh."

"That is the opinion I have formed of him. A man of the first magnitude in body, mind, and character. As yet I know very little of him; but one is struck with such a rarity at once, just as – "

"As I might be with an enormous diamond. But I am surprised to hear you say that you know him so little. I suppose he keeps himself very much to himself, down there. It was I who arranged that place for him."

"I do not even know whether he has any visitors. None from our part of the country I believe. But I saw no signs of secrecy about the place. It is naturally very lonely and secluded, and out of the line of the more important roads. And he has as good as told me that he was busy about something that he did not wish to talk about. It is suspected in some quarters that his business is the forgery of Russian rouble-notes."

"No, you don't say that! What a people we are! Ah, yes, ah, yes! I have been on the Continent for some weeks, or certainly I must have heard that grand joke. And they will make a raid upon him soon with a search-warrant I dare say. Oh, I would give something to see that! Tell them to keep the dogs in. I know what they are. And the policemen would shoot them as soon as look, for doing the very duty they have to do themselves, only doing it with a little more sagacity. Don't forget that, Mr. Cranleigh. I wouldn't have those dogs killed for a thousand pounds. There is not a dog to compare with them in England. I knew their grandfathers in the Caucasus."

Hereupon I told him, just to help my case, how lucky I had been by a very simple stratagem in saving the life of that glorious Kuban from a low beast of a bull-dog, and he laughed, and said "Capital! I should never have thought of that. By the by, I know something of your brother, Mr. Cranleigh. He has very nearly made a diamond, and he came to me about it. Upon my word, I thought at first that he had succeeded, until I threw my test-light on it. It was the nearest approach that has been accomplished yet. I dare say he told you all about it."

"Not a syllable. He never does, unless it is to try the effect upon me. He has the lowest possible opinion of my intellect. He has monopolised the brains of the family. But he is glad enough to come to me for more substantial things."

"Ah, yes! I see. But he will astonish the world some day. What amazed me about him was not his inventive power – though that must be very great, of course – so much as the quantity of pluck he showed, at any rate I should call it so. You would have thought it the turning-point in a young man's life, to know whether he had solved the great problem, or failed; but his hand never shook, it was as steady as mine now, and his colour never changed, he was as cool as any cucumber – the last one I bought was as hot as ginger. And when I said, 'No, sir. Not quite yet,' he made me the most beautiful bow I ever saw, and walked off, leaving the work of months with me."

"That is Harold all over. But he will never do any good. He is always on the brink of success, but never in it. And if he ever does succeed, all he'll say will be just this – 'Oh, any fool can do that,' and never think of it again. However, I must not go on about him. Time is getting on, and I ought to be at home again. What answer shall I take to Miss – Miss Prince Imar?"