The Infidel: A Story of the Great Revival

"You will have seventy-five pounds paid you every quarter," she said; "and all you have to do is to spend your money freely, and let Francesca buy everything that is wanted for you, and the children, and herself. I shall come back next year, and I shall be very sorry and very angry if I do not find you living in comfort, and the villino looking as handsome as a nobleman's villa."

The old man protested his gratitude, with tears. Yes, he would spend his money. He had been spending it. See, there was the magnificent new curtain; and he had a pillow for his bed; and a barrel of oil for the lamp. They had the lamp lighted every night. And he had coffee – a dish of coffee on Sunday – and they had been drinking their milk, and making butter for themselves, instead of selling all the milk to the negozio in Bellagio. Indeed, he had discovered that money was a very useful thing when one spent it; though it was also useful to keep it against the day of misfortune or death.

"True, m'amico; but it is bad economy to keep your money under your pillow, and let your house fall over your ears for want of mending," answered Antonia; and then she bade him good-bye – good-bye till next year, and bent down to kiss the withered forehead, above white pent-house eyebrows.

The keen old eyes clouded over with tears as her lips touched him, and the tremulous old hands were joined in prayer that God and the Saints might reward her piety.

She opened her arms to Francesca, who fell upon her breast, sobbing.

"Ah, sweetest lady, had the poor ever such a friend, ever such a benefactor? Heaven sent you to us. We pray for you night and day, for your happiness on earth, for your soul's bliss in heaven," cried the girl, in her melodious Italian.

Antonia could scarcely drag herself away from the clinging arms, the tears and benedictions; but she left Francesca at the garden gate, and amid all those tears and kisses had not revealed herself to her kindred.

She crossed the hill in silence, Dunkeld at her side, watching her thoughtful countenance, and perplexed by its almost tragic gloom.

"You are a wonderful woman," he said lightly, by-and-by, to break the spell of silence. "You take these Italian peasants to your heart as if they were your own flesh and blood. Is it the Italian blood in your veins that opens your heart to beings of so different a race?"

"Perhaps."

"I could understand your letting the girl hug you – a creature so lovely, and in the bloom and freshness of youth. But that wrinkled old miser! Well, 'twas a divine charity that moved you to squander a kiss upon that parchment brow."

Antonia turned to him in a sudden tumult of feeling, remorse, shame, self-disparagement.

"Oh, stop, stop!" she cried. "Your words scald me like molten lead. Divine charity! Why, I am the most despicable of women. I hate myself for my paltry pride. I can bear the shame of it no longer. 'Twill be your lordship's turn to scorn me as I scorn myself. That old man is my mother's father. I came to Italy to hunt for her kindred, to find in what palace she was reared, from what princely race I inherited my haughty spirit. And a chance, the chance likeness between Francesca and me, resulted in the discovery that I came of a long line of peasants, servants, the tillers of the ground, the race that lives by submissive toil, that has never known independence. And I was ashamed of them – bitterly ashamed. It was anguish to me to know that I sprang from that humble stock, most of all when I thought of you, your warriors, and statesmen, bishops, judges – all the long line of rulers and master minds, stretching back into the dark night of history, part of yourself; for if they had never lived you could not be what you are."

"Oh, madam, you own a more noble lineage than Scottish Thanes can boast of. The seaborn Venus had no ancestors, but was queen of the earth by the divine right of beauty. You are a daughter of the gods, and may easily dispense with a parchment pedigree."

"Oh, pray, sir, no idle compliments! I would rather suffer your contempt than your mocking praise. I can scarcely be more despicable in your esteem than I am in my own."

"I could never think ill of you, my sweet friend; never doubt the nobility of your heart and mind. The test has been a severe one; for to a woman the death of a romantic dream means much; but the gold rings true. You had a right to keep this secret from me if you pleased."

"And from them?"

"That is a nicer question. I doubt it is your duty to make them happier by the knowledge that they have a legitimate claim to your bounty. I think you would do well to disclose your relationship to them before you leave Italy. The old man may not live till your return; and the thought that pride had come between you and one so near in blood might be a lasting regret."

"Yes, yes, your lordship is right. I will see them again this evening. I will tell my grandfather who and what I am. Yes, it was odious of me to play the Lady Bountiful, to let him praise me for generosity – me, his daughter's child. Sure I am glad I made my confession to you, for now I know that you are my true friend."

"I will never advise you ill, if I can help it, madam," he said, stooping to kiss her hand. "And doubt not that you can trust me with every secret of your heart and mind, for there can exist no feeling or thought in either that is not common to generous natures."

Lady Kilrush spent the sunset hour with her kindred, and was touched by the old man's delight when he clasped to his heart the child of that daughter he had loved and mourned. She knelt beside him with uncovered head as she told him the story of her childhood, her love for the mother she had lost before memory began. He turned her face to the sunset glow, and gazed at her with eyes drowned in tears. He was no longer the money-grubber, keenly expectant of a stranger's bounty. The whole nature of the man seemed changed by the awakening of an unforgotten love.

"Yes, it is Tonia's face," he cried. "I knew you were beautiful; I knew you were like her; but not how like. Your brow has the same lines, your lips have the same curves. Yes, now, as you smile at me, I see my beloved one again."

There was nothing sordid or vulgar in the peasant now. His countenance shone with the pure light of love, and Antonia's heart went out to him with some touch of filial affection.

Before they parted he gave her a letter – the ink dim with age – her mother's last letter, written from the Lincolnshire homestead where she died; and Antonia read of the love that had hung over her cradle, that tender maternal love she had been fated never to know.

She deferred her journey for a few days, at her grandfather's entreaty, and spent many hours at the villino. She encouraged Baptisto and Francesca to talk to her of all the details of their lives. She drew nearer to them in thought and feeling, and made new plans for their happiness, promising to come to Bellagio every autumn, and offering to build them a new house next year at the other end of their garden where the view was finer. But the old man protested that the villino would last his time, and that he would never like any house as well.

"Then the new house must be built for Francesca when she marries," Antonia told him gaily. "We will wait till she has a suitor she loves."

CHAPTER XVI.

DEATH AND VICTORY

It was late in October when Lady Kilrush arrived at her house in St. James's Square. What a gloomy splendour, what an unromantic luxury the spacious mansion presented after the lake and mountains, the chestnut woods and rose gardens of Lombardy. Yet this old English comfort within doors, while the grey mists of autumn brooded over the square where the oil lamps made spots of quivering golden light amidst the deepening gloom, had a certain charm, and Antonia was not ill pleased to find herself taking a dish of tea by the fire in the library with her old friend Patty Granger, who brought her the news of the town, the weddings and elopements, the duels and law-suits, the beauties who had lost their looks, and the prodigals who had anticipated their majority and ruined an estate by a single cast at hazard.

"And so Lord Dunkeld travelled all the way from Como with you and Mrs. Potter?" said Patty, when she had emptied her budget. "You must have been vastly tired of him by the time you got home, after being boxed in a travelling chariot for over a se'nnight."

"There are people of whose company one does not easily tire, Patty."

"Then my old General ain't one of 'em; for I yawn till my jaws ache whenever we spend an evening together, and he sits and proses over Marlborough's wars and the two chargers he had shot under him at Malplaquet. Sure I knew all his stories by heart long before we were married; and 'tain't likely I'll listen to 'em now. But if you can relish Lord Dunkeld's conversation for a week in a chaise, perhaps you'll be able to endure it from year's end to year's end when you're his wife."

"What are you thinking of, child? I am not going to marry Lord Dunkeld, or any other man living."

"Then I think you ought to have put the poor wretch out of his pain a year ago, and not let him dance attendance on you half over Europe."

"His lordship has known my mind for a long time, and is pleased to honour me with his friendship."

"Ah, you have a knack of turning lovers into friends. You was friends with Mr. Stobart till you quarrelled with him and sent him off to the wars. And I doubt he's killed by this time, if he was with Wolfe; for the General tells me our soldiers haven't a chance against the French."

"Does the General say that, Patty?" Antonia asked anxiously.

She had read all the newspapers on her home-coming. There was no fresh news from America; but the tone about the war was despondent. Wolfe's army before Quebec was but nine thousand, the enemy's force nearly double. Amherst was at a distance, winter approaching, the outlook of a universal blackness.

"The General has hardly any hopes," said Patty. "He has seen Wolfe's last letter, such a down-hearted letter; and the poor man is fitter to lie a-bed in a hospital than to storm a city. He has always been a sickly wretch; never could abide the sea, and suffers more on a voyage than a delicate young woman."

Antonia lay awake half that night, despondent and uneasy, and in her troubled morning sleep dreamt of George Stobart, in a grenadier's uniform, with an ashen countenance, the blood streaming from a sabre cut on his forehead. He looked at her with fading eyes, and reproached her for her cruelty. 'Twas her unkindness had sent him to his doom.

She woke out of this nightmare vision to hear news-boys yelling in the square. "Taking of Quebec. A glorious victory. Death of General Wolfe. Death of General Montcalm." She sprang from her bed, threw up a window, and looked down into the square. It was hardly light. The news-boys were bawling as if they were mad, and street doors and area gates were opening, and eager hands were stretched out to snatch the papers. A ragamuffin crowd was following the news-boys, the crowd that is afoot at all hours, and comes from nowhere. "Great English victory – Slaughter of the enemy. Death of General Wolfe on the field of battle. Death of General Montcalm. Destruction of the French. Quebec taken."

Mr. Pitt had received the news late last night, and this morning 'twas in all the papers. The shouting of the news-vendors made a confusion of harsh noises, each trying to bawl louder than his fellows. And then came the sound of trumpet and drum in Pall Mall, as the guard marched to the Palace, and anon loud hurrahs from the excited crowd in the square, in Pall Mall, everywhere, filling the air with vociferous exultation.

Death and victory! The words reached Antonia's ear together. Victory purchased at what cost of blood, what sacrifice of lives that were dear? She had met old General Wolfe and his handsome wife, now a widow, the hero's proud mother; and it was sad to think of that lady's agony to-day, while all England was rejoicing, all who had not lost their dearest as she had.

Both generals slain! And how many of those they led to battle? Were George Stobart's bones lying on the heights of Abraham, the prey of eagles and wolves, or buried hastily by some friendly hand, hidden for ever under that far-off soil, which the winter snow would soon cover? Her heart ached at the thought that she would see him no more, she who had desired, or thought she desired, never to look upon his face.

She sent her woman for the newspapers, and turned them over with trembling hands, standing by the open window in the chill autumnal air, too much discomposed even to sit down. The Daily Advertiser had a letter with a description of the siege; all the wonder of it; the boats creeping up the river under the midnight stars; the ascent of that grim height through the darkness, the soldiers clambering with uncertain foothold, clutching at bushes, struggling through trees, their muskets slung at their backs, the qui vive? of the French sentinel above, the courage, the address, the presence of mind of leaders and men. There had been great losses; but there was no list of the killed; and Stobart might be among them.

She ordered her coach to be at the door in an hour, and waited only to dress and take a cup of chocolate before she went to see Mrs. Stobart, who, if her husband had survived the siege, might have had a letter by the ship that brought England the news from Quebec.

A stranger opened the door at Crown Place. Instead of Mrs. Stobart's handmaiden, in white apron and mob cap, Antonia saw an old woman, of dejected aspect, who stared at the footman and coach as at some appalling vision.

Yes, Mrs. Stobart was at home, but she was very ill, the woman said, and it might be dangerous for the lady to see her.

The lady, who had alighted at the opening of the door, took no heed of this warning. The wife was ill, struck down perhaps by the shock of fatal news. Antonia instantly associated Lucy's illness with the fate of her husband.

"Where is she?" she asked, and ran upstairs without waiting to be answered. In an eight-roomed house it was not difficult to find the mistress's chamber. She opened the door of the front room softly, and found herself in darkness, an obscurity made horrible by the stifling heat of the room, where the red cinders of what had been a fierce fire made a lurid glow behind the high brass fender. The dimity curtains were closed round the bed. Antonia drew one of them aside and looked at the sick woman. She was asleep, and breathing heavily, her forehead bound with a linen cloth, and the hand lying on the coverlet burnt like a hot coal under Antonia's touch.