The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly

“Yes, leave that question there.”

“Are you not afraid of the police, my friend?” asked Longworth. “Is it not in their power to send you back to those you have escaped from?”

“They might with another, but the Cardinal Secretary knows me. I have told him I have some business to do at Rome, and want only a day or two to do it, and he knows I will keep my word.”

“My faith, you are a very conscientious galley-slave!” cried Pracontal. “Are you hungry?” and he took a large piece of bread from the sideboard and handed it to him. The man bowed, took the bread, and laid it beside him on the window-board.

“And so you and Antonelli are good friends?” said Longworth sneeringly.

“I did not say so. I only said he knew me, and knew me to be a man of my word.”

“And how could a Cardinal know – ” when he got thus far he felt the unfairness of saying what he was about to utter, and stopped, but the man took up the words with perfect calmness, and said: —

“The best and the purest people in this world will now and then have to deal with the lowest and the worst, just as men will drink dirty water when they are parched with thirst.”

“Is it some outlying debt of vengeance, an old vendetta, detains you here?” asked Longworth.

“I wouldn’t call it that,” replied he, slowly, “but I’d not be surprised if it took something of that shape, after all.”

“And do you know any other great folk?” asked Pracontal, with a laugh. “Are you acquainted with the Pope?”

“No, I have never spoken to him. I know the French envoy here, the Marquis de Caderousse. I know Field-Marshall Kleinkoff. I know Brassieri – the Italian spy – they call him the Duke of Brassieri.”

“That is to say, you have seen them as they drove by on the Corso, or walked on the Pincian?” said Longworth.

“No, that would not be acquaintance. When I said ‘know’ I meant it.”

“Just as you know my friend here, and know me perhaps?” said Pracontal.

“Not only him, but you,” said the fellow, with a fierce determination.

“Me, know me? what do you know about me?”

“Everything,” and now he drew himself up, and stared at him defiantly.

“I declare I wonder at you, Anatole,” whispered Longworth. “Don’t you know the game of menace and insolence these rascals play at?” And again the fellow seemed to divine what passed, for he said: —

“Your friend is wrong this time. I am not the cheat he thinks me.”

“Tell me something you know about me,” said Pracontal, smiling; and he filled a goblet with wine, and handed it to him.

The other, however, made a gesture of refusal, and coldly said, – “What shall it be about? I ‘ll answer any question you put to me.”

“What is he about to do?” cried Longworth. “What great step in life is he on the eve of taking?”

“Oh, I’m not a fortune teller,” said the man, roughly; “though I could tell you that he’s not to be married to this rich Englishwoman. That fine bubble is burst already.”

Pracontal tried to laugh, but he could not; and it was with difficulty he could thunder out, – “Servants’ stories and lackeys’ talk!”

“No such thing, sir. I deal as little with these people as yourself. You seem to think me an impostor; but I tell you I am less of a cheat than either of you. Ay, sir, than you, who play fine gentlemen, mi Lordo, here in Italy, but whose father was a land-steward; or than you – ”

“What of me – what of me?” cried Pracontal, whose intense eagerness now mastered every other emotion.

“You I who cannot tell who or what you are, who have a dozen names, and no right to any of them; and who, though you have your initials burned in gunpowder in the bend of your arm, have no other baptismal registry. Ah! do I know you now?” cried he, as Pracontal sank upon a seat, covered with a cold sweat and fainting.

“This is some rascally trick. It is some private act of hate. Keep him in talk till I fetch a gendarme.” Longworth whispered this, and left the room.

“Bad counsel that he has given you,” said the man. “My advice is better. Get away from this at once – get away before he returns. There’s only shame and disgrace before you now.”

He moved over to where Pracontal was seated, and placing his mouth close to his ear, whispered some words slowly and deliberately.

“And are you Niccolo Baldassare?” muttered Pracontal.

“Come with me, and learn all,” said the man, moving to the door; “for I will not wait to be arrested and made a town talk.”

Pracontal arose and followed him.

The old man walked with a firm and rapid step. He descended the stairs that led to the Piazza del Popolo, crossed the wide piazza, and issued from the gate out upon the Campagna, and skirting the ancient wall, was soon lost to view among the straggling hovels which cluster at intervals beneath the ramparts. Pracontal continued to walk behind him, his head sunk on his bosom, and his steps listless and uncertain, like one walking in sleep. Neither were seen more after that night.

CHAPTER LXIX. THE LAST OF ALL

All the emissaries had returned to the villa except Sedley, who found himself obliged to revisit England suddenly, but from whom came a few lines of telegram, stating that the “case of Pracontal de Bramleigh v. Bramleigh had been struck out of the cause list; Kelson a heavy loser, having made large advances to plaintiff.”

“Was n’t it like the old fox to add this about his colleague? As if any of us cared about Kelson, or thought of him!”

“Good fortune is very selfish, I really believe,” said Nelly. “We have done nothing but talk of ourselves, our interests, and our intentions for the last four days, and the worst of it is we don’t seem tired of doing so yet.”

“It would be a niggardly thing to deny us that pleasure, seeing what we have passed through to reach it,” cried Jack.

“Who ‘ll write to Marion with the news?” said Augustus.

“Not I,” said Jack; “or if I do it will be to sign myself ‘late Sam Rogers.’”

“If George accepts the embassy chaplaincy,” said Julia, “he can convey the tidings by word of mouth.”

“To guess by his dreary face,” said Jack, “one would say he had really closed with that proposal. What’s the matter, old fellow; has the general joy here not warmed your heart?”

L’Estrange, pale and red alternately, blundered out a few scarcely coherent words; and Julia, who well knew what feelings were agitating him, and how the hopes that adversity had favored might be dashed, now that a brighter fortune had dawned, came quickly to his rescue, and said, “I see what George is thinking of. George is wondering when we shall all be as happy and as united again, as we have been here, under this dear old roof.”

“But why should we not?” broke in Augustus. “I mean to keep the anniversary of our meeting here, and assemble you all every year at this place. Perhaps I have forgotten to tell you that I am the owner of the villa. I have signed the contract this morning.”

A cry of joy – almost a cheer – greeted this announcement, and Augustus went on, —

“My ferns, and my green beetles, and my sea anemones, as Nelly enumerates them, can all be prosecuted here, and I purpose to remain and live here.”

“And Castello?”

“Jack will go and live at Castello,” continued he. “I have interceded with a lady of my acquaintance” – he did not glance at Julia, but she blushed as he spoke – “to keep a certain green room, with a little stair out of it down to the garden, for me when I go there. Beyond that I reserve nothing.”