The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly Part 102

"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." Long-worth 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 Balda.s.sare?" 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 cl.u.s.ter 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 n.i.g.g.ardly thing to deny us that pleasure, seeing what we have pa.s.sed 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 emba.s.sy 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 a.s.semble 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."

"We 'll only half value the gift without you, old fellow," said Jack, as he pa.s.sed his arm around her, and drew her fondly towards him.

"As one of the uninstructed public," interposed Cutbill, "I desire to ask, who are meant by 'We'?"

A half insolent toss of the head from Julia, meant specially for the speaker, was, however, seen by the others, who could not help laughing at it heartily.

"I think the uninstructed public should have a little deference for those who know more," broke in Jack, tartly, for he resented hotly whatever seemed to annoy Julia.

"Tom Cutbill is shunted off the line, I see," said Cutbill, mournfully.

"If he were," cried Augustus, "we should be about the most worthless set of people living. We owe him much, and like him even more."

"Now, that's what I call handsome," resumed Cutbill, "and if it was n't a moment when you are all thinking of things a precious sight more interesting than T. C, I 'd ask permission to return my acknowledgments in a speech."

"Oh, don't make a speech, Mr. Cutbill," said Julia.

"No, ma'am, I'll reserve myself till I return thanks for the bridesmaids."

"Will no one suppress him?" said Julia, in a whisper.

"Oh, I am so glad you are to live at Castello, dearest," said Nelly, as she drew Julia to her, and kissed her. "You are just the chatelaine to become it."

"There is such a thing as losing one's head, Nelly, out of sheer delight, and when I think I shall soon be one of you I run this risk; but tell me, dearest"--and here she whispered her lowest--"why is not our joy perfect? Why is poor George to be left out of all this happiness?"

"You must ask _him_ that," muttered she, hiding her head on the other's shoulder.

"And may I, dearest?" cried Julia, rapturously. "Oh, Nelly, if there be one joy in the world I would prize above all it would be to know you were doubly my sister--doubly bound to me in affection. See, darling, see--even as we are speaking--George and your brother have walked away together. Oh, can it be--can it be? Yes, dearest," cried she, throwing her arms around her; "your brother is holding him by the hand, and the tears are falling along George's cheek; his happiness is a.s.sured, and you are his own."

Nelly's chest heaved violently, and two low deep sobs burst from her, but her face was buried in Julia's bosom, and she never uttered a word.

And thus Julia led her gently away down one of the lonely alleys of the garden, till they were lost to sight.

Lovers are proverbially the very worst of company for the outer world, nor is it easy to say which is more intolerable--their rapture or their reserve. The overweening selfishness of the tender pa.s.sion conciliates no sympathy; very fortunately, it is quite indifferent to it. If it were not all-sufficing, it would not be that glorious delirium that believes the present to be eternal, and sees a world peopled only by two.

What should we gain, therefore, if we loitered in such company? They would not tell us _their_ secrets--they would not care to hear ours.

Let it be enough to say that, after some dark and anxious days in life, fortune once more shone out on those whom we saw so prosperous when first we met them. If they were not very brilliant nor very good, they were probably--with defects of temper and shortcomings in high resolve--pretty much like the best of those we know in life. Augustus, with a certain small vanity that tormented him into thinking that he had a lesson to read to the world, and that he was a much finer creature than he seemed or looked, was really a generously minded and warm-hearted fellow, who loved his neighbor--meaning his brother or his sister--a great deal better than himself.

Nelly was about as good as--I don't think better than--nineteen out of every twenty honestly brought-up girls, who, not seduced by the luxuries of a very prosperous condition, come early to feel and to know what money can and what it cannot do.

Jack had many defects of hot temper and hastiness, but on the whole was a fine, sailor-like fellow, carrying with him through life the das.h.i.+ng hardihood that he would have displayed in a breach or on a boarding, and thus occasionally exuberant, where smaller and weaker traits would have sufficed. Such men, from time to time, make troublesome first lieutenants, but women do not dislike them, and there is an impression abroad that they make good husbands, and that all the bl.u.s.ter they employ towards the world subsides into the mildest possible murmur beside the domestic hearthrug.

Marion was not much more or much less than we have seen her; and though she became, by the great and distinguished services of her husband, a countess, she was not without a strange sentiment of envy for a certain small vicarage in Herts, where rosy children romped before the latticed porch, beneath which sat a very blooming and beautiful mother, and worked as her husband read for her. A very simple little home sketch; but it was the page of a life where all harmonized and all went smoothly on: one of those lives of small ambitions and humble pleasures which are nearer Paradise than anything this world gives us.

Temple Bramleigh was a secretary of legation, and lived to see himself--in the uniformity of his ma.n.u.script, the precision of his docketing, and the exactness of his sealing wax--the pet of "the Office." Acolytes who swung incense before permanent secretaries, or held up the vestments of chief clerks, and who heard the words which drop from the high priests of foolscap, declared Temple was a rising man; and with a brother-in-law in the Lords, and a brother rich enough to contest a seat in the Lower House, one whose future pointed to a high post and no small distinction: for, happily for us, we live in an age where self-a.s.sertion is as insufficient in public life as self-righteousness in religion, and our merits are always best cared for by imputed holiness.

The story of this volume is of the Bramleighs, and I must not presume to suppose that my reader interests himself in the fate of those secondary personages who figure in the picture. Lady Augusta, however, deserves a pa.s.sing mention, but perhaps her own words will be more descriptive than any of mine; and I cannot better conclude than with the letter she wrote to Nelly, and which ran thus:--

"Villa Altieri, Rome.