The Master-Christian Part 37

"No."

"Oh, you must know her,--she is a great friend of Donna Sovrani's, and a witty and brilliant personage in herself. She is rather of your way of thinking, and so is out of favour with the Church. But that will not matter to you; and you will meet all the dissatisfied and enthusiastic of the earth in her salons! I will tell her to send you a card."

Aubrey said something by way of formal acknowledgment, and then took his leave. He was singularly depressed, and his face, always quick to show traces of thought, had somewhat lost its former expression of eager animation. The wily Gherardi had for the time so influenced his sensitive mind as to set it almost to the tune of the most despairing of Tennyson's "Two Voices",

"A life of nothings, nothing worth, From that first nothing ere his birth, To that last nothing under earth."

What was the use of trying to expound a truth, if the majority preferred a lie?

"Will one bright beam be less intense, When thy peculiar difference Is cancelled in the world of sense?"

And Gherardi noted the indefinable touch of fatigue that gave the slight droop of the shoulders and air of languor to the otherwise straight slim figure as it pa.s.sed from his presence,--and smiled. He had succeeded in putting a check on unselfish ardour, and had thrown a doubt into the pure intention of enthusiastic toil. That was enough for the present. And scarcely had Aubrey crossed the threshold--scarcely had the echo of his departing footsteps died away--when a heavy velvet curtain in the apartment was cautiously thrust aside, and Monsignor Moretti stepped out of a recess behind it, with a dignity and composure which would have been impossible to any but an Italian priest convicted of playing the spy. Gherardi faced him confidently.

"Well?" he said, with a more exhaustive enquiry expressed in his look than in the simple e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

"Well!" echoed Moretti, as he slowly advanced into the centre of the room, "You have not done as much as I expected you would. Your arguments were clever, but not--to a man of his obstinacy, convincing."

And sitting down, he turned his dark face and gleaming eyes full on his confrere, who with a shrug of his ma.s.sive shoulders expressed in his att.i.tude a disdainful relinquishment of the whole business.

"You have not," pursued Moretti deliberately, "grasped anything like the extent of this man Leigh's determination and indifference to results. Please mark that last clause,--indifference to results. He is apparently alone in the world,--he seems to have nothing to lose, and no one to care whether he succeeds or fails;--a most dangerous form of independence! And in his persistence and eloquence he is actually stopping--yes, I repeat it,--stopping and putting a serious check on the advancement of the Roman Catholic party. And of course any check just now means to us a serious financial loss both in England and America,--a deficit in Vatican revenues which will very gravely incommode certain necessary measures now under the consideration of His Holiness. I expected you to grasp the man and hold him,--not by intimidation but by flattery."

"You think he is to be caught by so common a bait?" said Gherardi, "Bah! He would see through it at once!"

"Maybe!" replied Moretti, "But perhaps not if it were administered in the way I mean. You seem to have forgotten the chief influence of any that can be brought to bear upon the heart and mind of a man,--and that is, Woman."

Gherardi laughed outright.

"Upon my word I think it would be difficult to find the woman suited to this case!" he said. "But you who have a diplomacy deeper than that of any Jew usurer may possibly have one already in view?"

"There is now in Rome," pursued Moretti, speaking with the same even deliberation of accent, "a faithful daughter of the Church, whose wealth we can to a certain extent command, and whose charm is unquestionable,--the Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein--"

Gherardi started. Moretti eyed him coldly.

"You are not stricken surely by the childlike fascination with which this princess of coquettes rules her court?" he enquired sarcastically.

"I?" echoed Gherardi, s.h.i.+fting his position so that Moretti's gaze could not fall so directly upon him. "I? You jest!"

"I think not!" said Moretti, "I think I know something about women--their capabilities, their pa.s.sions, their different grades of power. Sylvie Hermenstein possesses a potent charm which few men can resist, and I should not wonder if you yourself had been occasionally conscious of it. She is one of those concerning whom other women say 'they can see nothing in her'. Ah!" and Moretti smiled darkly, "What a compliment that is from the majority of women to one! This woman Sylvie is unique. Where is her beauty? You cannot say--yet beauty is her very essence. She cannot boast perfection of features,--she is frequently hidden away altogether in a room and scarcely noticed. And so she reminds me of a certain flower known to the Eastern nations, which is difficult to find, because so fragile and small that it can scarcely be seen, but when it is found, and the scent of it unwittingly inhaled, it drives men mad!"

Gherardi looked at him with a broadly wondering smile.

"You speak so eloquently," he said, "that one would almost fancy--"

"Fancy nothing!" retorted Moretti quickly, "Fancy and I are as far apart as the poles, except in the putting together of words, in which easy art I daresay I am as great an adept as Florian Varillo, who can write verses on love or patriotism to order, without experiencing a touch of either emotion. What a humbug by the way, that fellow is!--"

and Moretti broke off to consider this new point--"He rants of the honour of Italy, and would not let his finger ache for her cause! And he professes to love the 'Sovrani' while all Rome knows that Pon-Pon is his mistress!"

Gherardi wisely held his peace.

"The Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein is the little magic flower you must use;" resumed Moretti, emphasising his words with an authoritative movement of his hand, "Use her to madden Aubrey Leigh. Bring them together;--he will lose his head as surely as all men do when they come under the influence of that soft deep-eyed creature, with the full white breast of a dove, and the smile of an angel,--and remember, it would be an excellent thing for the Church if he could be persuaded to marry her,--there would be no more preaching then!--for the thoughts of love would outweigh the theories of religion."

"You think it?" queried Gherardi dubiously.

"I know it!" replied Moretti rising, and preparing to take his departure, "But,--play the game cautiously! Make no false move.

For--understand me well, this man Leigh must be silenced, or we shall lose England!"

And with these last words he turned abruptly on his heel and left the apartment.

XXII.

Cardinal Felix Bonpre sat alone in the largest and loneliest room of the large and lonely suite of rooms allotted to him in the Palazzo Sovrani,--alone at a ma.s.sive writing table near the window, his head resting on one hand, and his whole figure expressive of the most profound dejection. In front of him an ancient silver crucifix gleamed in the flicker of the small wood fire which had been kindled in the wide cavernous chimney--and a black-bound copy of the Gospels lay open as if but lately consulted. The faded splendour of certain gold embroidered hangings on the walls added to the solemn and melancholy aspect of the apartment, and the figure of the venerable prelate seen in such darkening gloom and solitude, was the crowning completion of an expressive and pathetic picture of patient desolation. So might a martyr of the Inquisition have looked while the flames were getting ready to burn him for the love of the gentle Saviour; and something of the temper of such a possible predecessor was in the physically frail old man, who just now was concentrating all the energies of his mind on the consideration of a difficult question which is often asked by many hearts in secret, but is seldom voiced to the public ear;--"Christ or the Church? Which must I follow to be an honest man?"

Never had the good Cardinal been in such a strange predicament. Living away from the great centres of thought and action, he had followed a gentle and placid course of existence, almost unruffled, save by the outside murmurs of a growing public discontent which had reached him through the medium of current literature, and had given him cause to think uneasily of possible disaster for the religious world in the near future,--but he had never gone so far as to imagine that the Head of the Church would, while being perfectly conscious of existing threatening evils, deliberately turn his back to appeals for help,--shut his ears to the cry of the "lost sheep of the House of Israel", and even endeavour, with an impotence of indignation which was as pitiable as useless, to shake a rod of Twelfth-century menace over the advancement of the Twentieth!

"For the onward movement of Humanity is G.o.d's work," said the Cardinal, "And what are we--what is even the Church--when it does not move side by side in perfect and pure harmony with the order of Divine Law?"

And he was bitterly troubled in spirit. He had spent the whole morning at the Vatican, and the manner of his reception there had been so curiously divided between flattery and reproach that he had not known what to make of it. The Pope had been tetchy and querulous,--precisely in such a humour as one naturally expects so aged a man to be when contradicted on any matter, whether trivial or important. For with such advanced years the faculties are often as brittle as the bones, and the failing powers of the brain are often brought to bear with more concentration on inconsiderable trifles than on the large and important affairs of life. He had questioned the Cardinal closely concerning the miraculous cure performed at Rouen, and had become excessively angry when the honest prelate earnestly disclaimed all knowledge of it. He had then confronted him with Claude Cazeau, the secretary of the Archbishop of Rouen, and Cazeau had given a clear and concise account of the whole matter, stating that the child, Fabien Doucet, had been known in Rouen since his babyhood as a helpless cripple, and that after Cardinal Bonpre had prayed over him and laid hands on him, he had been miraculously cured, and was now to be seen running about the city as strong and straight as any other healthy child. And Bonpre listened patiently;--and to all that was said, merely reiterated that if the child WERE so cured, then it was by the special intervention of G.o.d, as he personally had done no more than pray for his restoration. But to his infinite amazement and distress he saw plainly that the Holy Father did not believe him. He saw that he was suspected of playing a trick,--a trick, which if he had admitted, would have been condoned, but which if he denied, would cause him to be looked upon with distrust by all the Vatican party. He saw that even the man Cazeau suspected him. And then,--when the public confession of the Abbe Vergniaud came under discussion,--the Pope had gathered together all the visible remains of physical force his attenuated frame could muster, and had hurled himself impotently against the wall of opposing fact with such frail fury as almost to suggest the celebrated simile of "a reed shaken with the wind". In vain had the Cardinal pleaded for Vergniaud's pardon; in vain had he urged that after all, the sinner had branded himself as such in the sight of all men; what further need to add the ban of the Church's excommunication against one who was known to be within touch of death? Would not Christ have said, "Go, and sin no more"? But this simple quotation from the Gospels seemed to enrage the representative of St. Peter more violently than before, and when Bonpre left the Holy Presence he knew well enough that he was, for no fault of his own, under the displeasure of the Vatican. How had it all come about? Nothing could have been simpler than his life and actions since he left his own Cathedral-town,--he had prayed for a sick child,--he had sympathised with a sorry sinner,--that was all. And such deeds as these were commanded by Christ. Yet--the Head of the Church for these same things viewed him with wrath and suspicion! Wearily he sat, turning over everything in his mind, and longing, with a weakness which he fully admitted to his own conscience, to leave Rome at once and return to his own home, there to die among his roses at peace. But he saw it would never do to leave Rome just yet. He was bound fast hand and foot. He was "suspect"! In his querulous fit the Pope had ordered Claude Cazeau to return to Rouen without delay, and there gather further evidence respecting the Cardinal's stay at the Hotel Poitiers, and if possible, to bring the little Fabien Doucet and his mother back to Rome with him. Pending the arrival of fresh proof, Bonpre, though he had received no actual command, knew he was expected to remain where he was. Weary and sick at heart, the venerable prelate sighed as he reviewed all the entangling perplexities, which had, so unconsciously to himself, become woven like a web about his innocent and harmless personality, and so absorbed was he in thought that he did not hear the door of his room open, and so was sot aware that his foundling Manuel had stood for some time silently watching him. Such love and compa.s.sion as were expressed in the boy's deep blue eyes could not however radiate long through any s.p.a.ce without some sympathetic response,--and moved by instinctive emotion, Cardinal Felix looked up, and seeing his young companion smiled,--albeit the smile was a somewhat sad one.

"Where have you been, my child?" he asked gently, "I have missed you for some hours."

Manuel advanced a little, and stood between the pale afternoon light reflected through the window, and the warmer glow of the wood fire.

"I have been to the strangest place in all the world!" he answered, "The strangest,--and surely one of the most wicked!"

The Cardinal raised himself in his chair, and bent an anxious wondering look upon the young speaker.

"One of the most wicked!" he echoed, "What place are you talking of?"

"St. Peter's!" answered Manuel, with a thrill of pa.s.sion in his voice as he uttered the name, "St. Peter's,--the huge Theatre misnamed a Church! Oh, dear friend!--do not look at me thus! Surely you must feel that what I say is true? Surely you know that there is nothing of the loving G.o.d in that vast Cruelty of a place, where wealth and ostentation vie with intolerant officialism, bigotry and superst.i.tion!--where even the marble columns have been stolen from the temples of a sincerer Paganism, and still bear the names of Isis and Jupiter wrought in the truthful stone;--where theft, rapine and murder have helped to build the miscalled Christian fane! You cannot in your heart of hearts feel it to be the abode of Christ; your soul, bared to the sight of G.o.d, repudiates it as a Lie! Yes!"--For, startled and carried away by the boy's fervour, Cardinal Felix had risen, and now stood upright, making a feeble gesture with his hands, as though seeking to keep back the crus.h.i.+ng weight of some too overwhelming conviction,--"Yes--you would silence me!--but you cannot!--I read your heart! You love G.o.d . . . and I--I love Him too! You would serve Him!--and I--I would obey Him! Ah, do not struggle with yourself, dear and n.o.ble friend! If you were thrice crowned a martyr and saint you could not see otherwise than clearly--you could not but accept Truth when Truth is manifested to you,--you could not swear falsely before G.o.d! Would the Christ not say now as He said so many centuries ago--'My House is called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves!' Is it not truly a den of thieves? What has the Man of Sorrows to do with all the evil splendour of St. Peter's?--its bronzes, its marbles, its colossal statues of dead G.o.ds, its glittering altars, its miserable dreary immensity, its flaring gilding and insolent vulgarity of cost! Oh, what a loneliness is that of Christ in this world! What a second Agony in Gethsemane!"

The sweet voice broke--the fair head was turned away,--and Cardinal Felix, overcome by such emotion as he found it impossible to explain, suddenly sank on his knees, and stretched out his arms to the young slight creature who spoke with such a pa.s.sion and intensity of yearning.

"Child!" he said, with tremulous appeal in his accents, "For G.o.d's sake'--you who express your thoughts with such eloquence and fervent pain!--tell me, WHO ARE YOU? My mind is caught and controlled by your words,--you are too young to think as you do, or to speak as you do,--yet some authority you seem to possess, which I submit to, not knowing why; I am very old, and maybe growing foolish in my age--many troubles are gathering about me in these latter days,--do not make them more than I can bear!"

His words were to himself incoherent, and yet it seemed as if Manuel understood them. Suffering himself to be clasped for a moment by the old man's trembling hands, he nevertheless gently persuaded and a.s.sisted him to rise, and when he was once more seated, stood quietly by his side, waiting till he should have recovered from his sudden agitation.

"Dear friend, you are weary and troubled in spirit," he said tenderly then, "And my words seem to you only terrible because they are true! If they grieve you, it is because the grief in your heart echoes mine! And if I do think and speak more seriously than I should, it is for the reason that I have been so much alone in the world,--left to myself, with my own thoughts of G.o.d, which are not thoughts such as many care for. I would not add to your sorrows,--I would rather lighten them if I could--but I feel and fear that I shall be a burden upon you before long!"

"Never!" exclaimed Bonpre fervently, "Never a burden on me, child!

Surely while I live you will not leave me?"

Manuel was silent for a little s.p.a.ce. His eyes wandered from the Cardinal's venerable worn features to the upstanding silver crucifix that gleamed dully in the glow of the wood-embers.

"I will not leave you unless it is well for you that I should go," he answered at last, "And even then, you will always know where to find me."

The Cardinal looked at him earnestly, and with a searching interrogation,--but the boy's face though sweetly composed, had a certain gravity of expression which seemed to forbid further questioning. And a deep silence fell between them,--a silence which was only broken by the door opening to admit Prince Sovrani who, pausing on the threshold, said,