Diary And Notes Of Horace Templeton, Esq. Volume I

Here comes a showy affair! – a real landau with four horses, as fine as bouquets and worsted tassels can make them! No mistaking it —Erin go Brag! Sir Roger M’Causland and my lady, and the four Misses and the Master M’Causland. They are the invincibles of modern travel; they have stormed every court in Europe, and are the terror of Grand Maréchals from Naples to the Pole. Heaven help the English minister in whose city they squat for a winter! He would have less trouble with a new tariff or a new boundary than in arranging their squabbles with court functionaries and the police. Sir Roger must know the King and his Ministers, and expound to them his own notions of the government, with divers hints about free trade and other like matters. My Lady must be invited to all court balls and concerts, and a fair proportion of dinners; and this, “de droit,” because “the M’Causland” was a King of Ballyshandera in the year 4, and my Lady herself being an O’Dowde, also of blood royal. People may laugh at these absurd, shameless pretensions, but “il rit le mieux, qui rit le dernier,” says the proverb; and if the sentiment be one the M’Causlands’ dignity permit, they have the right to laugh heartily. Boredom, actual boredom – a perseverance that is dead to all shame – a persistance that no modesty rebukes – a steady resolve to push forward, wins its way socially as well as strategically; and even the folding-doors of court saloons fly open before its magic sésame.

And who are these gay equestrians with prancing hackneys, flowing plumes, and flaunting habits? – The Fothergills; four handsome, dashing, effronté girls, who, under the mock protection of a small schoolboy brother, are, really, escorted by a group of moustached heroes, more than one of whom I already recognise as scarcely fit company for the daughters of an English church dignitary. Mais que voulez-vous? They would not visit the curate’s wife and sister in Durham, but they will ride out at Baden with blacklegs and swindlers! The Count yonder, Monsieur de Mallenville, is a noted character in Paris, and is always attended, when there, by an emissary of the police, who, with what Alphonse Karr calls an empressement de bonne compagnie, never leaves him for a moment.

And here we have the “dons” of the entertainment, la Princesse de Rubetzki, as pretty a piece of devilry as ever Poland manufactured to sow treason and disaffection, accompanied by her devoted admirer the Austrian general, Count Cohary. Poor fellow! all his efforts to appear young and volage are as nothing to the difficulties he endures in steering between the fair Princess’s politics and her affection. An Austrian of the “vieille roche” he is shocked by the Liberalism of his lady-love; and yet, with Spielberg before him, he cannot tear himself away.

They who are not acquainted with the world of the Continent may think it strange that society, even in a watering-place, should assemble individuals so different in rank and social position; but a very little experience will always shew that intercourse is really as much denied between such parties as though they were in different hemispheres. As the Rhone rolls its muddy current through the blue waters of the Lake of Geneva, and never mingles its turbid stream with the clear waves beside it, so these people are seen pouring their flood through every assemblage, and never disturbing the placid surface in their course. To effect this, two requisites are indispensable to the company, – a very rigid good-breeding and a very lax morality. No one can deny that both are abundant.

And here, if I mistake not, comes my own cher-à-banc. Truly, my excellent valet has followed my directions to the letter. I said, “Something of the commonest,” and he has brought me a fiacre that seems as moribund and creaky as myself. No matter, I am ready. And now to be off!

CHAPTER X

Now has there happened to me one of the strangest adventures of my strange life, and before I sleep I have determined to note it down, for no other reason than this: that my waking thoughts to-morrow will refuse to credit mere memory, without some such corroboration. Nay, I have another witness – this glove!

Were it not for this, I should have chronicled our féte which really was far more successful than such things usually are. Not only was there no contretemps, but all went off well and pleasantly. The men were witty and good-tempered; the women – albeit many of them handsome – were aimable, and disposed to be pleased; the weather and the champagne were perfect. They who could eat – which I couldn’t – say, that Gougon was admirable; and the band played some of Donizetti’s pieces with great precision and effect. Ainsi, the elements were all favourable; each instrument filled its part; and the ensemble was good – rather a rare event where people come out expressly bent on enjoyment, and determined to take pleasure by storm. Premeditated happiness, like marriage for love, is often too much premeditated. Here, however, “the gods were propitious.” Unlike most picnics, there neither was rain nor rancour; and considering that we had specimens of at least half-a-dozen different nationalities, and frequently as many different languages going at once, there was much amusing conversation, and a great deal of pleasant, gossip-ping anecdote: not that regular story-telling which depends upon its stage-effect of voice and manner, but that far more agreeable kind of narrative that claims interest from being about people and places that we know beforehand, conveying traits of character and mind of well-known persons, always amusing and interesting.

There was a French secretary of legation for Berne, a most pleasant convive; and the Austrian general was equally amusing. Some of his anecdotes of the campaign of 1805 were admirable: by the way, he felt dreadfully shocked at his own confession that he remembered Wagram. The Countess Giordani came late. We were returning from our ramble among rocks and cliffs when she appeared.

I did not wish to be presented; I preferred rather the part of observing her, which acquaintance would have prevented. But old Lady B – did not give me the choice: she took my arm, and, after a little tour through the company, came directly in front of the Countess, saying, with a bluntness all her own, —

“Madame la Comtesse, let me present a friend whose long residence in your country gives him almost the claim of a countryman: – M, Templeton.”

If I was not unmoved by the suddenness of this introduction – appealing as it did, to me at least, to old memories – the Countess was composure itself: a faint smile in acknowledgment of the speech, a gentle expression of easy satisfaction on meeting one who had visited her country, were all that even my prying curiosity could detect.

“What part of Sicily have you seen?” said she to me.

“My friend Lady B – ,” said I, “has made me a greater traveller than I can pretend to be: I have been no further south than Naples.”

“Oh! I am not Neapolitan,” said she, hastily, and with an air like disappointment.

I watched her closely as she spoke, and at once said to myself, “No! this is not, this cannot be, Caroline Graham.”

We conversed but little during dinner. She evidently did not speak French willingly, and my Italian had been too long in rust for fluency. Of English she shewed not the least knowledge. There were stories told in her hearing, at some of which to avoid laughter would have been scarcely possible, and still she never smiled once. If I wanted any additional evidence that she was not of English origin, chance presented one, as she was referred to by the Russian for the name of a certain Sicilian family where a “vendetta” had been preserved for two entire centuries; and the Countess replied, with a slight blush, “The Marquis of Bianconetti – my uncle.”

I own that, while it was with a sense of relief I learned to believe that the Countess was not the sister of my poor friend, I still could not help feeling something akin to disappointment at the discovery. I felt as though I had been heaping up a store of care and anxiety around me for one I had never seen before, and for whom I could really take no deep interest. One husbands their affections as they grow older. The spendthrift habit of caring for people without even knowing why, or asking wherefore, which is one of the pastimes – and sometimes a right pleasant one, too – of youth, becomes rarer as we go further on in life, till at last we grow to be as grudging of our esteem as of our gold, and lend neither, save on good interest and the best security. Bad health has done for me the work of time, and I am already oppressed and weary of the evils of age.

Something, perhaps, of this kind – some chagrin, too, that the Countess was not my old acquaintance» though, Heaven knows, it had grieved me far more to know she had been – some discontent with myself for being discontented – or “any other reason why,” – but so was it, I felt what in fashionable slang is called “put out,” and, in consequence, resolved to leave the party and make my way homeward at the first favourable opportunity. Before setting out I had determined, as the night would be moonlit, to make a slight détour, and thus avoid all the fracas and tumult of driving home in a mob; and, with this intention, had ordered my phaeton to meet me in the Mourg-Thal, at a small inn, whither I should repair on foot, and then make my tour back by the Castle of Eberstein.

A move of the company to take coffee on a rock beside the Waterfall gave me the opportunity I desired, and I sauntered along a little path which in a few moments led me into the Pine Forest, and which, from the directions I had received, I well knew conducted over the mountain, and descended by a series of steep zigzags into the valley of the Mourg.

Although I had quitted the party long before sunset, the moon was high and bright ere I reached the spot where my carriage awaited me. Exhilarated by the unwonted exertion – half-gratified, too, by the consciousness of supporting a degree of fatigue I had been pronounced incapable of, – I took my seat in good spirits, to drive back to Baden. As I ascended the steep road towards Eberstein, I observed that lights were gleaming from the windows of the large salon of the castle, that looks towards the glen. I knew that the Grand Ducal family were at Carlsruhe, and was therefore somewhat surprised to see these signs of habitation in one of the state apartments of the château.

Alternately catching glimpses of and again losing these bright lights, I slowly toiled up the steep acclivity, which, to relieve my ponies, I ascended on foot. We were near the top, the carriage had preceded me some fifty yards or so, and I, alone, had reached a deeply-shaded spot, over which an ancient outwork of the castle threw a broad shadow, when suddenly I was startled by the sound of voices, so close beside me that I actually turned to see if the speakers were not following me; nor was it till they again spoke that I could believe that they were standing on the terrace above me. If mere surprise at the unexpected sound of voices was my first sensation, what was it to that which followed, as I heard a man’s voice say, —

“But how comes this M. Templeton to be of any consequence in the matter? It is true he was a witness, but he has no interest in troubling himself with the affair. He is an invalid besides – some say, dying.”

“Would he were dead!” interrupted a lower voice; but, although the accents were uttered with an unusual force, I knew them – at once I recognised them. It was the Countess spoke.

“Why so, if he never recognised you?”

“How am I certain of this?” said she again. “How shall I satisfy my own fears, that at every instant are ready to betray me? I dread his reserve more than all.”

“If he be so very inconvenient,” interposed the man, in a half-careless tone, “there may surely be found means to induce him to leave this. Invalids are often superstitious. Might not a civil intimation that his health was suffering from his séjour incline him to depart?”

The Countess made no reply: possibly the bantering tone assumed by her companion displeased her. After a brief silence, he resumed, —

“Does the man play? does he frequent the Saal? There surely are a hundred ways to force a quarrel on him.”

“Easier than terminate it with advantage,” said she, bitterly.

I heard no more; for, although they still continued to speak, they had descended from the terrace and entered the garden. I was alone. Before me, at the turn of the road, stood my servant, waiting with the horses. All was still as the grave. Was this I had heard real? were the words truly spoken, or were they merely some trick of an overwrought, sickly imagination! I moved into the middle of the road, so as to have a better view of the old “Schloss;” but, except a single light in a remote tower, all was shrouded in darkness: the salon, I believed to have been lit up, lay in deepest shadow. There was nothing I had not given, at that instant, to be able to resolve my doubts.

I walked hurriedly on, eager to question my servant both as to the voices and the lights; and as I went my eye fell upon an object before me in the road. I took it up – it was a glove – a lady’s glove! How came it there, if it had not fallen from the terrace?

With increased speed I moved forward, my convictions now strengthened by this new testimony.

My servant had neither seen nor heard any thing; indeed his replies to me were conveyed in a tone that shewed in what light he regarded my questioning. It was scarcely possible that he could not have been struck with the bright glare that illuminated a portion of the castle, yet he had not seen it; and as to voices, he stoutly averred that, although he could distinctly note the clatter of the mill in the valley below us, he had heard no human sound since we left the little inn.

It was to no purpose that I questioned and cross-questioned. I soon saw that my eagerness was mistaken by him for evidence of wandering faculties; and I perceived, in his anxiety that I should return, a fear, that my malady had taken some new turn. So far, too, was he right. My head was, indeed, troubled – strange fancies and shadowy fears crossing my excited mind as I went; so that, ere I reached my inn, I really was unable to collect my faculties, and separate the dream-land from the actual territory of fact. And now it is with painful effort I write these lines, each moment doubting whether I should not erase this, or insert that. Were it not for this glove, that lies on my paper before me, I should believe all to be mere illusion. What a painful struggle this is, and how impossible to allay the fears of self-deception! At one moment I am half resolved to order a saddle-horse and return to Eberstein – for what? – with what hope of unravelling the mystery? At the next I am determined to repair to the Countess’s villa near the town, and ask if she has returned; but how shall I venture on such a liberty? If my ears had not deceived me, she is and must be Caroline Graham; and yet would I not rather believe that my weary brain had wandered, than that this were so?

But what are these sounds of voices in the antechamber? I hear Guckhardt’s voice!

Yes: my servant had thought it prudent to fetch the doctor, and he has been here and felt my pulse, and ordered cold to my temples, and a calming draught. It is clear, then, that I have been ill, and I must write no more!

CHAPTER XI

Gasthaus, Zum Bär, Dallas, Tyrol

It is exactly seven weeks this day since I last opened my journal. I promised Guckhardt not to look into it for a month, and so I have well kept my word! It would seem, indeed, a small privation in most circumstances to abstain from chronicling the ebbing hours of a life; but Egotism is next of kin to Sickness, and I can vent mine more harmlessly here than if spent in exhausting the patience of my friends. Some listener must be found to the dreamy querulousness of the invalid, and why not his own heart?

Even to those nearest and dearest to our affections, there is always a sense of shame attendant on the confessions of our weakness, more so than of our actual vices. But what a merciful judge is Self! how gentle to rebuke! how reluctant to punish! how sanguine to hope for reformation! Hence is it that I find a comfort in jotting down these “mems” of the past; but from a friend, what shaking of the head, what regretful sorrowings, should I meet with! How should I hear of faculties and fortune – life itself – wasted without one object, even a wish, compassed! When I reflect upon the position in life attainable by one who starts with moderate abilities, a large fortune, reasonable habits of industry, and a fair share of well-wishers, and then think of what I now am, I might easily be discontented and dispirited; but if I had really reached the goal, can I say that I should be happy? can I say, that all the success within my reach could have stilled within me the tone of peaceful solitude I have ever cherished as the greatest of blessings? But why speculate on this? I never could have been highly successful. I have not the temper, had I the talent, that climbs high. I must always have done my best at once; put forth my whole strength on each occasion – husbanded nothing, and consequently gained nothing.

Here I am at Dallas, in the Tyrol, a wild and lonely glen, with a deep and rushing river foaming through it. The mountain in front of me is speckled with wooden chalets, some of them perched on lofty cliffs, not distinct from realms of never-melting snow.

All is poverty on every side; even in the little church, where Piety would deck its shrine at any sacrifice, the altar is bare of ornament. The Cure’s house, too, is humble enough for him who is working yonder in his garden, an old and white-haired man, too feeble and frail for such labour; and already the sun has set, and now he ceases from his toil: for the “Angelus” is ringing, and soon the village will be kneeling in prayer. Already the bell has ceased, and through the stilly air rises the murmur of many voices.

There was somewhat of compassionate pity in the look of the old man who has just passed the window; he stopped a moment to gaze at me – at the only one whose unbended knee and closed lips had no brotherhood in the devotion. He seemed very poor, and old, and feeble, and yet he could look with a sense of pity upon me, as an outcast from the faith. So did I feel his steady stare at least; for, at that instant, the wish was nearest to my heart that I, too, could have knelt and prayed with the rest. And why could |I not? was it that my spirit was too stubborn, too proud, to mingle with the humble throng? did I feel myself better, or nobler, or greater than the meanest there, when uttering the same words of thankfulness or hope? No, far from it; a very different, but not less powerful barrier interposed. Education, habits of thought, prejudices, convictions, even party spirit, had all combined to represent Romanism to my mind, in all the glaring colours of its superstitions, its cruelties, and its deceptions. Then arose before me a kind of vision of its tyranny over mankind, – its inquisitions, its persecutions, its mock miracles, and its real bloodshed; and I could not turn from the horrible picture, even to the sight of those humble worshippers who knelt in all the sincerity of belief.

I actually dreaded the sway of the devotional influence, lest, when my heart had yielded to it, some chance interruption of ceremonial, some of those fantastic forms of the Church, should turn my feelings of trust and worship to one of infidelity and scorn.

There, all is over now, and the villagers are returning homewards – some, to the little hamlet – others, are wending their way upwards, to homes high amid the mountains – and here I sit alone, in my little whitewashed room, watching the shadows as they deepen over the glen, and gazing on that mountain peak that glows like a carbuncle in the setting sun.

It is like a dream to me how I have come to sojourn in this peaceful valley. The last entry I made was in Baden, the night of that party at the Waterfall. The next day I awoke ill – fevered from a restless night. Guckhardt came early, and thinking I was asleep, retired without speaking to me. He laid his hand on my temples, and seemed to feel that I required rest and quiet, for he cautioned my servant not to suffer the least disturbance near me.

I conclude I must have been sleeping, for the sudden noise of voices and the tramp of many feet aroused me. There was evidently something strange and unexpected going forward in the town. What could it mean? My servant seemed most unwilling to tell me, and only yielded to my positive commands to speak.. Even now I tremble to recall the tidings – a murder had been committed! One of the guests at our late féte, a young Englishman named Lockwood, had been discovered dead on the side of the road about two miles from the Waterfall; his watch, and purse with several gold pieces, were found on his person, so that no robbery had been the reason of the crime. I remember his having come on foot, and hearing that I should not require my char-à-banc to return, he engaged it. The driver’s story is, that the stranger always got out to walk at the hills, usually lingering slowly in his ascent of them; and that at last, at the top of the highest, he had waited for a considerable time without his appearing, and growing weary of expectancy he returned, and at the foot of the hill discovered something dark, lying motionless beside the pathway; he came closer, and saw it was the stranger quite dead. Three wounds, which from their depth and direction seemed to have been given by a dagger, were found in the chest; one, entered from the back between the shoulders; the fingers of the right hand were also cut nearly through, as though he had grasped a sharp weapon in his struggle. Death must have been immediate, as the heart was twice wounded; probably he expired almost at once. The direction and the position of the wounds refuted every idea of a suicide – and yet how account for the crime of murder? The stranger was scarcely a week in Baden, not known to any one before his arrival here, and since had merely formed those chance acquaintanceships of watering-places. There was not, so far as one could see, the slightest ground to suspect any malice or hatred towards him.. The few particulars I have here set down were all that my servant could tell me. But what from the terrible nature of the tidings themselves, my own excitable state when hearing them, but, more than either, the remembrance of the dialogue I had overheard the night before – all combined and increased my fever to that degree that ere noon I became half wild with delirium. What I said, or how my wandering faculties turned, I cannot – nor would I willingly – remember. There was enough of illness in my ravings, and of method in them too, to bring Guckhardt again to my bedside, accompanied by a high agent of the police. The attempt to examine a man in such a state relative to the circumstances of a dreadful crime could only have entered the head of a Préfet de Police or a Juge d’Instruction. What my revelations were I know not; but it is clear they assumed a character of independent fancy that balked the scrutiny of the official, for he left me to the unmixed cares of my doctor.

By his counsel I was speedily removed from Baden, under the impression that the scene would be prejudicial to my recovery. I was indifferent where, or in what way, they disposed of me; and when I was told I was to try the air of the Lake of Constance, I heard it with the apathy of one sunk in a trance. Nor do I yet know by what means the police, so indefatigable in tormenting the innocent, abandoned their persecution of me. They must have had their own sufficient reasons for it; so much is certain.

And now, once more, I ask myself, Is all that I have here set down the mere wanderings of a broken and disjointed brain? have these incidents no other foundation than a morbid fancy? I would most willingly accept even this sad alternative, and have it so; but here is evidence too strong to disbelieve. Here before me lies an English newspaper, with a paragraph alluding to the mysterious murder of an English gentleman at Baden. The dates, circumstances, all tally in the minutest particulars. Shall I discredit these proofs?