Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier: A Novel. Lever Charles James
obtained their full share of admiration from the simple villagers, whose whispered words almost savoured of worship, until, awe-stricken, they found themselves in a magnificent chamber, hung with pictures from floor to ceiling. In a deep window recess, from which a vast view opened over mountain and forest, the Contessina was standing, book in hand, gazing listlessly on the landscape, and never noticing in the slightest that dense throng which now gathered in the lower part of the room.
‘Maurizio and the peasants have come to pay their duty, whispered a thin, elderly lady, who acted as governante to the young countess.
‘Well, be it so,’ said she languidly. And now a very meanly-clad priest, poor and wretched in appearance, came crouchingly forward to kiss her hand. She gave it with averted head, and in a way that indicated little of courtesy, while he bent tremblingly over it, as beseemed one whose lips touched the fingers of a great cardinal’s niece. Maurizio followed, and then the other members of his household. When it came to Gerald’s turn to advance, ‘You must, you must; it is your duty,’ whispered the steward, as, rebel-like, the youth wished to pass on without the act of deference.
‘Is this Tonino?’ asked the Contessina, suddenly turning her head, for her quick ears had caught the words of remonstrance. ‘Is this Tonino?’
‘No, Eccelenza; Tonino was drawn in the conscription, muttered the steward, in confusion. ‘He knew your Excellency would have got him off, if you were here, but – ’
‘Which is this, then – your second son, or your third?’
‘Neither, Eccelenza, neither; he is a sort of connection – ‘’
‘Nothing of the kind,’ broke in Gerald. ‘I’m of the blood of the Geraldines.’
‘Native princes,’ said the Contessina quickly. ‘Irish, too! How came you here?’
‘He has been living with us, Eccelenza, for some months back,’ chimed in the steward; ‘an honest Frate, one – ’
‘Let himself answer me,’ said the Contessina.
‘They took, me from the Jesuit college and placed me here,’ said the boy.
‘Who do you mean by they?’ asked she.
‘The Frate, and the Count; perhaps, indeed, I owe the change more to him.’
‘What is his name?’
‘I never heard it. I only saw him once, and then for a short time.’
‘How old are you?’
‘I think, fifteen.’
‘Indeed. I should have thought you younger than I am,’ said she, half musingly.
‘Oh, no; I look much, much older,’ said Gerald, as he gazed at her bright and beautiful features.
‘Don Cesare,’ said she, turning to a pale old man beside her, ‘you must write to the rector of the college, and let us learn about this boy – how he came there, and why he left. And so,’ said she, addressing Gerald, ‘you think it beneath your quality to kiss a lady’s hand?’
‘No, no!’ cried he rapturously, as he knelt down and pressed her hand to his lips.
‘It is not so you should do it, boy,’ broke in the governante. ‘Yours has been ill training, wherever you have got it.’
‘Alas! I have had little or none,’ said Gerald sorrowfully.
‘Pass on, boy; move on,’ said the governante, and Gerald’s head drooped as his heavy footsteps stole along. He never dared to look up as he went. Had he done so, what a thrill might his heart have felt to know that the Contessina’s eyes had followed him to the very door.
‘There, you have done for me and yourself too, with your stupid pride about your blood,’ cried the Intendente, when they gained the courtyard. ‘The next thing will be an order to send me to Rome, to explain why I have taken you to live here.’
‘Well, I suppose you can give your reasons for it,’ said Gerald gravely.
‘Except that it was my evil fortune, I know of none other/ broke out the other angrily, and turned away. From each, in turn, of the family did he meet with some words of sarcasm and reproof; and though Ninetta said nothing, her tearful eyes and sorrow-stricken features were the hardest of all the reproaches he endured.
‘What am I, that I should bring shame and sorrow to those who befriend me!’ cried he, as with an almost bursting heart he threw himself upon his bed; and sobbed there till he fell asleep. When the first gleam of sunlight broke upon him he awoke, and as suddenly remembered all his griefs of the day before, and he sat down upon his bed to think over what he should do.
‘If I could but find out the Conte at Rome, or even the Fra Luke,’ thought he; but alas! he had no clue to either. ‘I know it; I have it,’ exclaimed he at last. ‘There is a life which I can live without fearing reproach from those about me. I’ll go and be a charcoal-burner in the Maremma. The Carbonari will not refuse to have me, and I’ll set out for the forest at once.’
When Gerald had uttered this resolve it was in the bitterness of despair that he spoke, since of all the varied modes by which men earned a livelihood, none was in such universal disrepute as that of a charcoal-burner; and when the humblest creature of the streets said ‘I ‘d as soon be a charcoal-burner,’ he expressed the direst aspect of his misery.
It was not, indeed, that either the life or the labour had anything degrading in itself, but, generally, they who followed it were outcasts and vagabonds – the irreclaimable sweepings of towns, or the incorrigible youth of country districts, who sought in the wild and wandering existence a freedom from all ties of civilisation; the life of the forest in all its savagery, but in all its independence. The chief resort of these men was a certain district in those low-lying lands along the coast, called Maremmas, and where, from the undrained character of the soil and rapid decomposition of vegetable matter ever going on, disease of the most deadly form existed – ague and fever being the daily condition of all who dwelt there. Nothing but habits of wildest excess, and an utter indifference to life, could make men brave such an existence; but their recompense was, that this district was a species of sanctuary where the law never entered. Beyond certain well-known limits the hardiest carbineer never crossed; and it was well known that he who crossed that frontier came as fugitive, and not as foe. Many, it is true, of those who sojourned here were attainted with the deepest crimes – men for whom no hope of return to the world remained, outcasts branded with undying infamy; but others there were, mere victims of dissipation and folly – rash youths, who had so irretrievably compromised their fair fame that they had nothing left but to seek oblivion.
The terrible stories Gerald had heard of these outcasts from his school-fellows, the horror in which they were held by all honest villagers, inspired him with a strange interest to see them with his own eyes. It savoured, too, of courage; it smacked, to his heart, like bravery, to throw himself among such reckless and daredevil associates, and he felt a sort of hero to himself when he had determined on it. ‘Ay,’ said he, ‘they have been taunting me here for some time back, that my friends take little trouble about me – that they half forget me, and so on. Let us see if I cannot make a path for myself, and spare them all future trouble.’
CHAPTER VIII. THE TANA IN THE MAREMMA
Simply turning his steps westward, in the direction where he knew the Maremma lay, Gerald set out on his lonely journey. It was nothing new in his habits to be absent the entire day, and even night, so that no attention was drawn to his departure till late the following day; nor, perhaps, would it have been noticed then, if a summons had not come from the Contessina that she desired to speak with him. A search was at once made, inquiries instituted on every side, and soon the startling fact acknowledged, that he had gone away, none knew whither or why.
The Contessina at once ordered a pursuit; he was to be overtaken and brought back. Mounted couriers set off on every side, scouring the high-roads, interrogating hotel-keepers, giving descriptions of the fugitive at passport stations – taking, in short, all the palpable and evident means of discovery; while he – for whose benefit this solicitude