My Novel Part 126

No doubt it is. I should not like to be in your friend's shoes."

"Shoes!" said Spendquick, with a sort of shudder; "you never saw a neater fellow, nor one, to do him justice, who takes more time in dressing than he does in general. And talking of shoes, he rushed out with the right boot on the left foot, and the left boot on the right.

Very mysterious!" And a third time Lord Spendquick shook his head,--and a third time that head seemed to him wondrous empty.

CHAPTER XXV.

Buy Frank had arrived in Curzon Street, leaped from the cabriolet, knocked at the door, which was opened by a strange-looking man in a buff waistcoat and corduroy smalls. Frank gave a glance at this personage, pushed him aside, and rushed upstairs. He burst into the drawing-room,--no Beatrice was there. A thin elderly man, with a ma.n.u.script book in his hands, appeared engaged in examining the furniture, and making an inventory, with the aid of Madame di Negra's upper servant. The thin man stared at Frank, and touched the hat which was on his head. The servant, who was a foreigner, approached Frank, and said, in broken English, that his lady did not receive,--that she was unwell, and kept her room. Frank thrust a sovereign into the servant's hand, and begged him to tell Madame di Negra. that Mr. Hazeldean entreated the honour of an interview. As soon as the servant vanished on this errand, Frank seized the thin man by the arm. "What is this?--an execution?"

"Yes, sir."

"For what sum?"

"Fifteen hundred and forty-seven pounds. We are the first in possession."

"There are others, then?"

"Or else, sir, we should never have taken this step. Most painful to our feelings, sir; but these foreigners are here to day, and gone to-morrow.

And--"

The servant re-entered. Madame di Negra would see Mr. Hazeldean. Would he walk upstairs? Frank hastened to obey this summons.

Madame di Negra was in a small room which was fitted up as a boudoir.

Her eyes showed the traces of recent tears, but her face was composed, and even rigid, in its haughty though mournful expression. Frank, however, did not pause to notice her countenance, to hear her dignified salutation. All his timidity was gone. He saw but the woman whom he loved in distress and humiliation. As the door closed on him, he flung himself at her feet. He caught at her hand, the skirt of her robe.

"Oh, Madame di Negra!--Beatrice!" he exclaimed, tears in his eyes, and his voice half-broken by generous emotion; "forgive me, forgive me!

don't see in me a mere acquaintance. By accident I learned, or, rather, guessed--this--this strange insult to which you are so unworthily exposed. I am here. Think of me--but as a friend,--the truest friend.

Oh, Beatrice,"--and he bent his head over the hand he held,--"I never dared say so before, it seems presuming to say it now, but I cannot help it. I love you,--I love you with my whole heart and soul; to serve you--if only but to serve you!--I ask nothing else." And a sob went from his warm, young, foolish heart.

The Italian was deeply moved. Nor was her nature that of the mere sordid adventuress. So much love and so much confidence! She was not prepared to betray the one, and entrap the other.

"Rise, rise," she said softly; "I thank you gratefully. But do not suppose that I--"

"Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+--you must not refuse me. Hus.h.!.+ don't let your pride speak."

"No, it is not my pride. You exaggerate what is occurring here. You forget that I have a brother. I have sent for him. He is the only one I can apply to. Ah, that is his knock! But I shall never, never forget that I have found one generous n.o.ble heart in this hollow world."

Frank would have replied, but he heard the count's voice on the stairs, and had only time to rise and withdraw to the window, trying hard to repress his agitation and compose his countenance. Count di Peschiera entered,--entered as a very personation of the beauty and magnificence of careless, luxurious, pampered, egotistical wealth,--his surtout, trimmed with the costliest sables, flung back from his splendid chest.

Amidst the folds of the glossy satin that enveloped his throat gleamed a turquoise, of such value as a jeweller might have kept for fifty years before he could find a customer rich and frivolous enough to buy it. The very head of his cane was a masterpiece of art, and the man himself, so elegant despite his strength, and so fresh despite his years!--it is astonis.h.i.+ng how well men wear when they think of no one but themselves!

"Pr-rr!" said the count, not observing Frank behind the draperies of the window; "Pr-rr--It seems to me that you must have pa.s.sed a very unpleasant quarter of an hour. And now--Dieu me d.a.m.ne, quoi faire!"

Beatrice pointed to the window, and felt as if she could have sunk into the earth for shame. But as the count spoke in French, and Frank did not very readily comprehend that language, the words escaped him, though his ear was shocked by a certain satirical levity of tone.

Frank came forward. The count held out his hand, and with a rapid change of voice and manner, said, "One whom my sister admits at such a moment must be a friend to me."

"Mr. Hazeldean," said Beatrice, with meaning, "would indeed have n.o.bly pressed on me the offer of an aid which I need no more, since you, my brother, are here."

"Certainly," said the count, with his superb air of grand seigneur; "I will go down and clear your house of this impertinent canaille. But I thought your affairs were with Baron Levy. He should be here."

"I expect him every moment. Adieu! Mr. Hazeldean." Beatrice extended her hand to her young lover with a frankness which was not without a certain pathetic and cordial dignity. Restrained from further words by the count's presence, Frank bowed over the fair hand in silence, and retired. He was on the stairs when he was joined by Peschiera.

"Mr. Hazeldean," said the latter, in a low tone, "will you come into the drawing-room?"

Frank obeyed. The man employed in his examination of the furniture was still at his task: but at a short whisper from the count he withdrew.

"My dear sir," said Peschiera, "I am so unacquainted with your English laws, and your mode of settling embarra.s.sments of this degrading nature, and you have evidently showed so kind a sympathy in my sister's distress, that I venture to ask you to stay here, and aid me in consulting with Baron Levy."

Frank was just expressing his unfeigned pleasure to be of the slightest use, when Levy's knock resounded at the streetdoor, and in another moment the baron entered.

"Ouf!" said Levy, wiping his brows, and sinking into a chair as if he had been engaged in toils the most exhausting,--"ouf! this is a very sad business,--very; and nothing, my dear count, nothing but ready money can save us here."

"You know my affairs, Levy," replied Peschiera, mournfully shaking his head, "and that though in a few months, or it may be weeks, I could discharge with ease my sister's debts, whatever their amount, yet at this moment, and in a strange land, I have not the power to do so. The money I brought with me is nearly exhausted. Can you not advance the requisite sum?"

"Impossible!--Mr. Hazeldean is aware of the distress under which I labour myself."

"In that case," said the count, "all we can do to-day is to remove my sister, and let the execution proceed. Meanwhile I will go among my friends, and see what I can borrow from them."

"Alas!" said Levy, rising and looking out of the window--"alas!--we cannot remove the marchesa,--the worst is to come. Look!--you see those three men; they have a writ against her person: the moment she sets her foot out of these doors she will be arrested."

[At that date the law of mesne process existed still.]

"Arrested!" exclaimed Peschiera and Frank in a breath. "I have done my best to prevent this disgrace, but in vain," said the baron, looking very wretched. "You see these English tradespeople fancy they have no hold upon foreigners. But we can get bail; she must not go to prison--"

"Prison!" echoed Frank. He hastened to Levy and drew him aside. The count seemed paralyzed by shame and grief. Throwing himself back on the sofa, he covered his face with his hands.

"My sister!" groaned the count--"daughter to a Peschiera, widow to a Di Negra!" There was something affecting in the proud woe of this grand patrician.

"What is the sum?" whispered Frank, anxious that the poor count should not overhear him; and indeed the count seemed too stunned and overwhelmed to hear anything less loud than a clap of thunder!

"We may settle all liabilities for L5,000. Nothing to Peschiera, who is enormously rich. Entre nous, I doubt his a.s.surance that he is without ready money. It may be so, but--"

"Five thousand pounds! How can I raise such a sum?"

"You, my dear Hazeldean? What are you talking about? To be sure you could raise twice as much with a stroke of your pen, and throw your own debts into the bargain. But--to be so generous to an acquaintance!"

"Acquaintance!--Madame di Negra! the height of my ambition is to claim her as my wife!"

"And these debts don't startle you?"

"If a man loves," answered Frank, simply, "he feels it most when the woman he loves is in affliction. And," he added, after a pause, "though these debts are faults, kindness at this moment may give me the power to cure forever both her faults and my own. I can raise this money by a stroke of the pen! How?"

"On the Casino property."

Frank drew back.

"No other way?"