The Fortunes Of Glencore Part 54

"It was certainly a pleasant and proud one, sir, as it always must be, to write to a mother in commendation of her son. By the way, Chevalier, you have forgotten to make your compliments to the Count on his promotion--"

"I have not heard of it, madam; what may it be?" asked Stubber.

"To the command of the Pahlen Hussars, sir,--one of the proudest 'charges' of the Empire."

A rush of blood to Wahnsdorf's face was as quickly followed by a deadly pallor, and with a broken, faint utterance he said, "Good-bye," and left the room.

"A fine young fellow,--the very picture of a soldier," exclaimed Stubber, looking after him.

"A chevalier of the olden time, sir,--the very soul of honor," said the Princess, enthusiastically. "And now for a little gossip with yourself."

It is not "in our brief" to record what pa.s.sed in that chatty interview; plenty of state secrets and state gossip there was,--abundance of that dangerous trifling which mixes up the pa.s.sions of society with the great game of politics, and makes statecraft feel the impress of men's whims and caprices. We were just beginning that era, "the policy of resentments," which has since pervaded Europe, and the Chevalier and the Princess were sufficiently behind the scenes to have many things to communicate; and here we must leave them while we hasten on to other scenes and other actors.

CHAPTER XLIII. DOINGS IN DOWNING STREET

The dull old precincts of Downing Street were more than usually astir.

Hackney-coaches and cabs at an early hour, private chariots somewhat later, went to and fro along the dreary pavement, and two cabinet messengers with splashed _caleches_ arrived in hot haste from Dover.

Frequent, too, were the messages from the House; a leading Oppositionist was then thundering away against the Government, inveighing against the treacherous character of their foreign policy, and indignantly calling on them for certain despatches to their late envoy at Naples. At every cheer which greeted him from his party a fresh missive would be despatched from the Treasury benches, and the whisper, at first cautiously muttered, grew louder and louder, "Why does not Upton come down?"

So intricate has been the web of our petty entanglements, so complex the threads of those small intrigues by which we have earned our sobriquet of the "perfide Albion," that it is difficult at this time of day to recall the exact question whose solution, in the words of the orator of the debate, "placed us either at the head of Europe, or consigned to us the fatal mediocrity of a third-rate power." The prophecy, whichever way read, gives us unhappily no clew to the matter in hand, and we are only left to conjecture that it was an intervention in Spain, or "something about the Poles." As is usual in such cases, the matter, insignificant enough in itself, was converted into a serious attack on the Government, and all the strength of the Opposition was arrayed to give power and consistency to the a.s.sault. As is equally usual, the cabinet was totally unprepared for defence; either they had altogether undervalued the subject, or they trusted to the secrecy with which they had conducted it; whichever of these be the right explanation, each minister could only say to his colleague, "It never came before _me_; Upton knows all about it."

"And where is Upton?--why does he not come down?"--were again and again reiterated; while a shower of messages and even mandates invoked his presence.

The last of these was a peremptory note from no less a person than the Premier himself, written in three very significant words, thus: "Come, or go;" and given to a trusty whip, the Hon. Gerald Neville, to deliver.

Armed with this not very conciliatory doc.u.ment, the well-practised tactician drew up to the door of the Foreign Office, and demanded to see the Secretary of State.

"Give him this card and this note, sir," said he to the well-dressed and very placid young gentleman who acted as his private secretary.

"Sir Horace is very poorly, sir; he is at this moment in a mineral bath; but as the matter you say is pressing, he will see you. Will you pa.s.s this way?"

Mr. Neville followed his guide through an infinity of pa.s.sages, and at length reached a large folding-door, opening one side of which he was ushered into a s.p.a.cious apartment, but so thoroughly impregnated with a thick and offensive vapor that he could barely perceive, through the mist, the bath in which Upton lay reclined, and the figure of a man, whose look and att.i.tude bespoke the doctor, beside him.

"Ah, my dear fellow," sighed Upton, extending two dripping fingers in salutation, "you have come in at the death. This is the last of it!"

"No, no; don't say that," cried the other, encouragingly. "Have you had any sudden seizure? What is the nature of it?"

"He," said he, looking round to the doctor, "calls it 'arachnoidal trismus,'--a thing, he says, that they have all of them ignored for many a day, though Charlemagne died of it. Ah, Doctor,"--and he addressed a question to him in German.

A growled volley of gutturals ensued, and Upton went on:--

"Yes, Charlemagne,--Melancthon had it, but lingered for years. It is the peculiar affection of great intellectual natures over-taxed and over-worked."

Whether there was that in the manner of the sick man that inspired hope, or something in the aspect of the doctor that suggested distrust, or a mixture of the two together, but certainly Neville rapidly rallied from the fears which had beset him on entering, and in a voice of a more cheery tone, said,--

"Come, come, Sir Horace, you 'll throw off this as you have done other such attacks. You have never been wanting either to your friends or yourself when the hour of emergency called. We are in a moment of such difficulty now, and you alone can rescue us."

"How cruel of the Duke to write me that!" sighed Upton, as he held up the piece of paper, from which the water had obliterated all trace of the words. "It was so inconsiderate,--eh, Neville?"

"I'm not aware of the terms he employed," said the other.

This was the very admission that Upton sought to obtain, and in a far more cheery voice he said,--

"If I was capable of the effort,--if Doctor Geimirstad thought it safe for me to venture,--I could set all this to right. These people are all talking 'without book,' Neville,--the ever-recurring blunder of an Opposition when they address themselves to a foreign question: they go upon a newspaper paragraph, or the equally incorrect 'private communication from a friend.' Men in office alone can attain to truth--exact truth--about questions of foreign policy."

"The debate is taking a serious turn, however," interposed Neville.

"They reiterate very bold a.s.sertions, which none of our people are in a position to contradict. Their confidence is evidently increasing with the show of confusion in our ranks. Something must be done to meet them, and that quickly."

"Well, I suppose I must go," sighed Upton; and as he held out his wrist to have his pulse felt, he addressed a few words to the doctor.

"He calls it 'a life period,' Neville. He says that he won't answer for the consequences."

The doctor muttered on.

"He adds that the trismus may be thus converted into 'Bi-trismus.' Just imagine Bi-trismus!"

This was a stretch of fancy clear and away beyond Neville's apprehension, and he began to feel certain misgivings about pus.h.i.+ng a request so full of danger; but from this he was in a measure relieved by the tone in which Upton now addressed his valet with directions as to the dress he intended to wear. "The loose pelisse, with the astrakhan, Giuseppe, and that vest of _cramoisie_ velvet; and if you will just glance at the newspaper, Neville, in the next room, I 'll come to you immediately."

The newspapers of the morning after this interview afford us the speediest mode of completing the incidents; and the concluding sentences of a leading article will be enough to place before our readers what ensued:--

"It was at this moment, and amidst the most enthusiastic cheers of the Treasury bench, that Sir Horace Upton entered the House. Leaning on the arm of Mr. Neville, he slowly pa.s.sed up and took his accustomed place.

The traces of severe illness in his features, and the great debility which his gestures displayed, gave an unusual interest to a scene already almost dramatic in its character. For a moment the great chief of Opposition was obliged to pause in his a.s.sault, to let this flood-tide of sympathy pa.s.s on; and when at length he did resume, it was plain to see how much the tone of his invective had been tempered by a respect for the actual feeling of the House. The necessity for this act of deference, added to the consciousness that he was in presence of the man whose acts he so strenuously denounced, were too much for the nerves of the orator, and he came to an abrupt conclusion, whose confused and uncertain sentences scarcely warranted the cheers with which his friends rallied him.

"Sir Horace rose at once to reply. His voice was at first so inarticulate that we could but catch the burden of what he said,--a request that the House would accord him all the indulgence which his state of debility and suffering called for. If the first few sentences he uttered imparted a painful significance to the entreaty, it very soon became apparent that he had no occasion to bespeak such indulgence. In a voice that gained strength and fulness as he proceeded, he entered upon what might be called a narrative of the foreign policy of the administration, clearly showing that their course was guided by certain great principles which dictated a line of action firm and undeviating; that the measures of the Government, however modified by pa.s.sing events in Europe, had been uniformly consistent,--based upon the faith of treaties, but ever mindful of the growing requirements of the age.

Through a narrative of singular complexity he guided himself with consummate skill, and though detailing events which occupied every region of the globe, neither confusion nor inconsistency ever marred the recital, and names and places and dates were quoted by him without any artificial aid to memory."

There was in the polished air, and calm, dispa.s.sionate delivery of the speaker, something which seemed to charm the ears of those who for four hours before had been so mercilessly a.s.sailed by all the vituperation and insolence of party animosity. It was, so to say, a period of relief and repose, to which even antagonists were not insensible. No man ever understood the advantage of his gifts in this way better than Upton, nor ever was there one who could convert the powers which fascinated society into the means of controlling a popular a.s.sembly, with greater a.s.surance of success. He was a man of a strictly logical mind, a close and acute thinker; he was of a highly imaginative temperament, rich in all the resources of a poetic fancy; he was thoroughly well read, and gifted with a ready memory; but, above all these,--transcendently above them all,--he was a "man of the world;" and no one, either in Parliament or out of it, knew so well when it was wrong to say "the right thing." But let us resume our quotation:--

"For more than three hours did the House listen with breathless attention to a narrative which in no parliamentary experience has been surpa.s.sed for the lucid clearness of its details, the unbroken flow of its relation. The orator up to this time had strictly devoted himself to explanation; he now proceeded to what might be called reply. If the House was charmed and instructed before, it was now positively astonished and electrified by the overwhelming force of the speaker's raillery and invective. Not satisfied with showing the evil consequences that must ensue from any adoption of the measures recommended by the Opposition, he proceeded to exhibit the insufficiency of views always based upon false information.

"'We have been taunted,' said he, 'with the charge of fomenting discords in foreign lands; we have been arraigned as disturbers of the world's peace, and called the firebrands of Europe; we are exhibited as parading the Continent with a more than Quixotic ardor, since we seek less the redress of wrong than the opportunity to display our own powers of interference,--that quality which the learned gentleman has significantly stigmatized as a spirit of meddling impertinence, offensive to the whole world of civilization. Let me tell him, sir, that the very debate of this night has elicited, and from himself too, the very outrages he has had the temerity to ascribe to us. His has been this indiscriminate ardor, his this unjudging rashness, his this meddling impertinence (I am but quoting, not inventing, a phrase), by which, without accurate, without, indeed, any, information, he has ventured to charge the Government with what no administration would be guilty, of--a cool and deliberate violation of the national law of Europe.

"'He has told you, sir, that in our eagerness to distinguish ourselves as universal redressers of injury, we have "ferreted out"--I take his own polished expression--the case of an obscure boy in an obscure corner of Italy, converted a commonplace and very vulgar incident into a tale of interest, and, by a series of artful devices and insinuations based upon this narrative, a grave and insulting charge upon one of the oldest of our allies. He has alleged that throughout the whole of those proceedings we had not the shadow of pretence for our interference; that the acts imputed occurred in a land over which we had no control, and in the person of an individual in whom we had no interest; that this Sebastiano Greppi--this image boy, for so with a courteous pleasantry he has called him--was a Neapolitan subject, the affiliated envoy of I know not what number of secret societies; that his sculptural pretensions were but pretexts to conceal his real avocations,--the agency of a bloodthirsty faction; that his crime was no less than an act of high treason; and that Austrian gentleness and mercy were never more conspicuously ill.u.s.trated than in the commutation of a death-sentence to one of perpetual imprisonment.

"'What a rude task is mine when I must say that for even one of these a.s.sertions there is not the slightest foundation in fact. Greppi's offence was not a crime against the state; as little was it committed within the limits of the Austrian territory. He is not the envoy, or even a member, of any revolutionary club; he never--I am speaking with knowledge, sir--he never mingled in the schemes of plotting politicians; as far removed is he from sympathy with such men, as, in the genius of a great artist, he is elevated above the humble path to which the learned gentleman's raillery would sentence him. For the character of "an image vendor," the learned gentleman must look nearer home; and, lastly, this youth is an Englishman, and born of a race and a blood that need feel no shame in comparison with any I see around me!'

"To the loud cry of 'Name, name,' which now arose, Sir Horace replied: 'If I do not announce the name at this moment, it is because there are circ.u.mstances in the history of the youth to which publicity would give irreparable pain. These are details which I have no right to bring under discussion, and which must inevitably thus become matters of town-talk.

To any gentleman of the opposite side who may desire to verify the a.s.sertions I have made to the House, I would, under pledge of secrecy, reveal the name. I would do more; I would permit him to confide it to a select number of friends equally pledged with himself. This is surely enough?'"

We have no occasion to continue our quotation farther, and we take up our history as Sir Horace, overwhelmed by the warmest praises and congratulations, drove off from the House to his home. Amid all the excitement and enthusiasm which this brilliant success produced among the ministerialists, there was a kind of dread lest the overtaxed powers of the orator should pay the heavy penalty of such an effort. They had all heard how he came from a sick chamber; they had all seen him, trembling, faint, and almost voiceless, as he stole up to his place, and they began to fear lest they had, in the hot zeal of party, imperilled the ablest chief in their ranks.

What a relief to these agonies had it been, could they have seen Upton as he once more gained the solitude of his chamber, where, divested of all the restraints of an audience, he walked leisurely up and down, smoking a cigar, and occasionally smiling pleasantly as some "conceit"

crossed his mind.

Had there been any one to mark him there, it is more than likely that he would have regarded him as a man revelling in the after-thought of a great success,--one who, having come gloriously through the combat, was triumphantly recalling to his memory every incident of the fight. How little had they understood Sir Horace Upton who would have read him in this wise! That daring and soaring nature rarely dallied in the past; even the present was scarcely full enough for the craving of a spirit that cried ever, "Forward!"