Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier: A Novel

‘And thou art Gherardi mio!’ cried the woman, as she rushed wildly toward him and clasped him in her arms. It was Marietta herself who spoke.

How tell the glorious outburst of Gerald’s joy, as he overpowered her with questions – whence she came, whither going, how and why, and wherefore there? Was she really and truly the Egyptian who had visited him on his sick-bed, and not a mere vision?

‘And was it from thy lips, then,’ cried he, ‘that I learned that all this ambition was but a snare – that I was destined to be only the tool of crafty men, deep in their own designss? At times the revelation seemed to come from thee, and at times a burst of heart-felt conviction. Which was it, Marietta mia?’

‘Who is he?’ cried the Fra eagerly. ‘This surely cannot be – ay, but it is the Prince – the son of my old lord and master!’ and he knelt and kissed Gerald’s hands over and over again. ‘He knows me not – at least as I once was – the friend, the boon companion of a king’s son,’ continued he passionately.

‘Were you, then, one of his old Scottish followers – one of those faithful men who clung so devotedly to his cause?’

‘No, no; but I was one that he loved better than them all.’

‘And you, Marietta, dearest, how is it that I see you here?’ cried Gerald, again turning to her.

‘I came many a weary mile after you, mio caro,’ said she. ‘I knew of these men’s designs long, long ago, and I determined to save you from them. I believed I could have secured Massoni as your friend; but I was wrong – the Jesuit was stronger in him than the man. I remained at St. Ursula months after I might have left it, just to see the Père – to watch his game – and, if possible, attach him to me; but I failed – utterly failed. He was true to his cause, and would not accept my love. More fortunate, however, was I with the Cardinal – even, perhaps, that I wished or cared for – His Eminence was my slave. There was not a secret of the Vatican I did not learn. I read the correspondence with the Spanish minister, Arazara; I suggested the replies; I heard the whole plan for your expedition – how you were to be secretly married to the Countess Ridolfi, and the marriage only avowed when your success was assured.’

She paused, and the Fra broke in – ‘Tell all – everything – the mine has exploded now, and none are the worse for it Go on with your confession.’

‘It is of the other alternative he speaks,’ said she, dropping her voice to a faint whisper. ‘Had you failed – ’

‘And then – what then, Marietta?’

‘You were in that case to have been betrayed into the hands of the English, or poisoned! The scheme to accomplish the first was already planned. I have here the letters which are to accredit me to see and converse with Sir Horace Mann, at Florence; and which I mean to deliver too. I am resolved to trace out to the very last who are the accomplices in this guilt. The world is well edified by tales of mob violence and bloodshed. Even genius seeks its inspiration in inveighing against popular excesses. It is time to show that crimes lurk under purple as well as rags, and that the deadliest vengeances are often devised beneath gilded ceilings. We knew of one once, Gherardi, who could have told men these truths – one who carried from this world with him the “funeral trappings of the monarchy” and the wail of the people.

‘Of whom did she speak?’ asked the friar.

‘Of Gabriel Riquetti, whom she loved,’ and the last words were whispered by Gerald in her ear.

Marietta held down her head, and as she covered her face with her hands muttered – ‘But who loved not her!’

‘Gabriel Riquetti,’ broke in the friar, ‘had more of good and bad in him than all the saints and all the devils that ever warred. He had the best of principles and the worst of practices, and never did a wicked thing but he could show you a virtuous reason for it.’

Struck by the contemptuous glance of Marietta, Gerald followed the look she gave, and saw that the friar’s eyes were bloodshot, and his face purple with excess.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE END

From Marietta Gerald heard how, with that strange fatality of inconsistency which ever seemed to accompany the fortunes of the Stuarts, none proved faithful followers save those whose lives of excess or debauchery rendered them valueless; and thus the drunken Fra, whose wild snatches of song and ribaldry now broke in upon the colloquy, was no other than the Carmelite, Kelly, the once associate and corrupter of his father.

In a half-mad enthusiasm to engage men in the cause of his Prince he had begun a sort of recruitment of a legion who were to land in Scotland or Ireland. The means by which he at first operated were somewhat liberally contributed to him by a secret emissary of the family, whom Kelly at length discovered to be the private secretary of Miss Walsingham, the former mistress of Charles Edward. Later on, however, he found out that this lady herself was actually a pensioner of the English government, and in secret correspondence with Mr. Pitt, who, through her instrumentality, was in possession of every plan of the Pretender, and knew of his daily movements. This treacherous intercourse had begun several years before the death of Charles Edward, and lasted for some years after that event.

Stung by the consciousness of being duped, as well as maddened by having been rendered an enemy to the cause he sought to serve, Kelly disbanded his followers, and took to the mountains as a brigand. With years he had grown only more abandoned to excess of every kind. All his experiences of life had shown little beyond baseness and corruption, and he had grown to care for nothing beyond the enjoyment of the passing hour, except when the possibility of a vengeance on those who had betrayed him might momentarily awake his passion, and excite him to some effort of vindictive anger.

In his hours of mad debauchery he would rave about landing in England, and a plan he had conceived for assassinating the king; then it was his scheme to murder Mr. Pitt, and sometimes all these were abandoned for the desire to make Miss Walsingham herself pay the penalty of her base and unwomanly treachery.

‘He came to our convent gate in his garb of a friar to beg,’ said Marietta. ‘I saw him but for an instant, and I knew him at once. He was one of those who, in the “red days” of the Revolution, mocked the order he belonged to by wearing a rosary of playing-dice! and he recognised me as one who had even more shamelessly exposed herself.’ A deep crimson flush covered her face and neck as she spoke, and as quickly fled, to leave her as pale as a corpse. ‘Oh, mio caro,’ cried she, ‘there are intoxications more maddening to the senses than those of drinking; there are wild fevers of the mind, when degradation seems a sort of martyrdom; and in the very depth of our infamy and shame we appear to ourselves to have attained to something superhuman in self-denial. It was my fate to live with one who inspired these sentiments.’ She paused for a few seconds, and then, trembling on every accent, she said: ‘To win his love, to conquer the heart that would not yield to me, I dared more than ever woman, far more than ever man, dared.’

‘Here’s to the king’s buffoon, and a bumper toast it shall be,’ burst in the friar, with a drunken ribaldry; ‘and if there are any will not drink it, let him drink to the Minister’s mistress!’

To the sudden gesture which Gerald’s anger evoked, Marietta quickly interposed her hand, and, in a low, soft voice, besought him to remain quiet.

‘If the cause were up, or the cause were down,
What matter to you or to me;
For though the Prince had played his crown,
Our stake was a bare bawbee!’

sang out Kelly lustily. ‘Who’ll deny it? Who’ll say there wasn’t sound reason and philosophy in that sentiment? None knew it better than Prince Charlie himself.’

‘And was this man the companion of a Prince?’ whispered Gerald in her ear.

‘Even so; fallen fortunes bring degraded followers,’ said Marietta. ‘I have heard it said that many of his father’s associates were of this stamp.’

‘And how could men hope to restore a cause thus contaminated and stained?’ cried he, somewhat louder.

‘That’s what Kinloch said,’ burst in Kelly; ‘you remember the song —

‘The Prince he swore, on his broad claymore,
That he ‘d sit in his father’s chair,
But there wasn’t a man, outside his clan,
That wanted to see him there, boys,
That wanted to see him there.’

‘A black falsehood, as black as ever a traitor uttered!’ cried Gerald, whose passion burst all bounds.

‘Here’s to the traitors – hip, hip! To the traitors, for it was —

‘The traitors all in St. Cannes’s hall,
They feasted merrily there,
While the wearied men sought the bleak, wild glen,
And tasted but sorry fare, boys,
Tasted but sorry fare.

‘Oh, if I ‘d a voice, and could have my choice,
I know with whom I ‘d be,
Not the hungry lads, with their threadbare plaids,
But the lords of high degree, boys,
The lords of high degree.’

‘And so thought the Prince too, cried he out fiercely, and in a tone meant for an insolent taunt. ‘He liked the easy life and the soft couch of St. Germains far better than the long march and the heather-bed in the Highlands.’

‘How long must I endure this fellow’s insolence?’ whispered Gerald to Marietta, in a voice trembling with passion.

‘For my sake, Gherardi,’ she began; but the Fra overheard the words, and with a drunken laugh broke in —

‘If you have a drop of Stuart blood in you, you ‘ll yield to the woman, whatever it is she asks.’

Stung beyond control of reason, Gerald sprang to his feet; but before he could even approach Kelly, the stout friar had grasped his short blunderbuss and cocked it.

‘Another step – one step more, and if you were the anointed King himself, instead of his bastard, I ‘ll send you to your reckoning!’