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Sir John Constantine, a novel by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
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_ BY GERVASE ARUNDEL. July 15 (St. Swithun's), 1761. My nephew has asked me to write the few words necessary to conclude this narrative. The day after my brother's burial, the _Gauntlet_, in company with General Paoli's gunboat, _Il Sampiero_, weighed and left the island of Giraglia for Isola Rossa, where by agreement we were to wait one calendar month before sailing for England. The foregoing pages will sufficiently explain why the month passed without my nephew's putting in an appearance. For my part, albeit my arguments had been powerless to dissuade him from going to Genoa, I never expected him to return, but consoled myself with the knowledge that he had gone to his fate in a good cause, and in a spirit not unworthy of his father. We were highly indebted during our stay at Isola Rossa to the General, who, being detained there by the business of his new fortifications, exerted himself that we should not lack a single comfort, and seemed to inspire a like solicitude in his subjects. I call the Corsicans his subjects since (if the reflection may be permitted) I never met a man who carried a more authentic air of kingliness--and I am not forgetting my own dear brother-in-law. Alive, these two men met face to face but once; and Priske, who witnessed the meeting, yet understood but a bare word or two of what was said, will have it that for dignity of bearing the General would not compare with his master. The honest fellow may be right; for certainly no one could speak with John Constantine and doubt that here was one of a line of kings. Nevertheless to me (a matter-of-fact man), Paoli appeared scarcely less imposing in person, and withal bore himself with a businesslike calm which, in a subtle way I cannot describe, seemed to tolerate the others, yet suggest that, beside his own purpose, theirs were something unreal. As an Englishman I should say that he felt the weight of public opinion behind him all the while, without which in these days the kingliest nature must miss something of gravity. Yet he has proved more than once that no public man can be more quixotic, upon occasion. It distressed me to find that the Queen Emilia would have none of his courtesies; as I think it distressed him, though he comported himself perfectly. She rejected, and not too graciously, his offer to restore her to her palace at Casalabriva and secure her there against all enemies. From the first she had determined, failing her son's return, to sail with us to England; and sail she did. But from the first I doubted her reaching it alive. Her sufferings had worn her out, and it is a matter of dispute between Dom Basilio (who administered the last sacrament), and me whether or no her eyes ever saw the home to which we carried her. They were open, and she was certainly breathing, when we made the entrance of Helford river; for we had lifted her couch upon deck and propped her that she might catch the earliest glimpse of Constantine above the trees. They were open when we dropped anchor, but she was as certainly dead. She lies buried in the private chapel of the house, disused during my brother-in-law's lifetime, but since restored and elaborately decorated by our Trappist guests. A slab of rose-pink Corsican granite covers her, and is inscribed with the words, "Orate pro anima Emiliae, Corsicorum Reginae," the date of her death, and beneath it a verse which I took to be from the Vulgate until Parson Grylls quarrelled with Dom Basilio over it-- "CRAS AMET QVI NVNQVAM AMAVIT QVIQVE AMAVIT CRAS AMET."
I arrived in London early in the second week of November, 1760--a few days after the decease of our King George II.; and, my business with Mr. Knox drawing to a conclusion, it came into my head to procure a ticket and go visit the Prince's chamber, near the House of Peers, where his Majesty's body lay in state. This was on the very afternoon of the funeral, that would start for the Abbey after nightfall, and at Westminster I found a throng already gathered in the mud and murk. In the _chambre ardente_, which was hung with purple, a score of silver lamps depended from the roof around a tall purple canopy, under which the corpse reposed in its open coffin, flanked with six immense silver candelabra. Between the candelabra and at the head and foot of the coffin stood six gigantic soldiers of the guard, rigid as statues, with bowed heads and arms reversed. Only their eyes moved, and I dare say that I stared at them in something like terror. Certainly a religious awe held me as the pressure of the sightseers carried me forth from the doors again and into the street, where I wedged myself into the crowd, and waited for the procession. By this time a fog had rolled up from the river, and the foot-guards who lined the road had begun to light their torches. Behind them were drawn up the horse-guards, their officers erect in saddle, with naked sabres and heavy scarves of crape. There amid the sounds of minute guns, and of bells tolling I must have waited a full hour before the procession came by--the fifes, the muffled drums, the yeomen of the guard staggering with the great coffin, the pall-bearers and peers walking two and two, with pages bearing their heavy trains. All this I watched as it went by, and with a mind so shaken that a hand from behind had plucked twice or thrice at my elbow before I was aware that any one claimed my attention. Then, turning with a moisture in my eyes--for the organ had begun to sound within the abbey--I found myself staring past the torch of a foot-guard and into the face of my nephew, risen from the dead! He was haggard, unkempt in his hair and dress, and (I think) had been fasting for a long while without being aware of his hunger. He drew me back and away from the crowd; but when I had embraced him, it seemed that to all my eager questions he had nothing to answer. "I was starting for Cornwall, to-morrow," he said. "Shall we travel together?" And then, as though painfully recollecting, he passed a hand over his forehead and added, "I have walked half-way across Europe. I am a good walker by this time." "We will hire horses, to be sure," said I, finding nothing better to say. The age, the lines in his young face cut me to the heart, and I longed to ask concerning the Princess, but dared not. "Horses? Ah, yes, to be sure, I come back to riches. Nay, my dear uncle, you are going to tell me that the estates are mortgaged deep as ever--I know. But allow me to tell you there is all the world's difference between poverty that is behindhand with its interest, and poverty that has to trust God for its next meal." At the eating-house to which I carried him he held out his scarred palms to me across the table. "They have worked my way for me from the Alps," said he. "I left my crown there, and"--he laughed wearily--"I come back to find another monarch in the act of laying aside a greater one. My God! The vanity of it!" He drank off a glass of wine. "Find me a bed, Uncle Gervase," said he. "I feel that I can sleep the clock round."
By good fortune I am able to supply the reader with some later news of two members of the expedition, Mr. Fett and Mr. Badcock. It came to me, early this summer, in the following letter:--
"I take up my pen, and lay aside the false nose I have been wearing night and day for close on a week, to make a communication which will doubtless interest you as it has profoundly affected me. It will also interest your nephew and his lady (whose hands I kiss) if they succeeded in effecting their escape to England--where, failing news of them, I do myself a frequent pleasure to picture them at rest upon the quiet waters of domestic felicity. But I address myself rather to you, whom (albeit on the briefest acquaintance) I shall ever regard as the personification of stability and mild repose. Heracleitus and his followers may prate of a world of flux; but there are men to whom the recollections of their fellows ever turn confidently, secure of finding them in the same place; and of such, sir, you are the palmary example among my acquaintance. "On the circumstances of our retreat from Genoa I need not dilate. We decamped--I and my brother _artistes_--to Pisa, where, after an unsatisfactory season, we broke up our company by mutual consent and went our various ways in search of fortune. Mr. Badcock--by this time a pantaloon of considerable promise and not to be sneezed at in senile parts where affection or natural decay required, or at least excused, a broken accent--threw in his lot with me: and we bent our steps together upon this unique city, where for close upon twelve months I have drawn a respectable salary as Director of Public Festivities to the Sisterhood of the Conventual Body of Santa Chiara. Nor is the post a sinecure; since these estimable women, though themselves vowed against earthly delights, possess a waterside garden which, periodically--and especially in the week preceding Lent--they throw open to the public; a practice from which they derive unselfish pleasure and a useful advertisement. "On Thursday last, the Giovedi Grasso, the Abbess had (in consultation with me) provided an entertainment which not only attracted the rank and fashion of Venice but (I will dare to say) made them forget the exhaustion of the maddest day of carnival with its bull-baiting and battles of _confetti_. An hour before midnight all Venice had taken to its gondolas and was being swept, with song and music, towards the Giudecca. The lagoons swam with the reflections of a thousand moving lanterns, and all their streaming ribbons of light converged upon the bridge of Santa Chiara, beyond which, where the gardens descended in stairways of marble to the water, I had lined the banks with coloured lamps. Discreet narrow water-alleys, less flauntingly lit, but with here and there a caged nightingale singing in the boscage, intersected the sisters' pleasure-grounds; but the main canal led around an ample stretch of turf in the midst of which my workmen had reared a stage for a masque of my composing, entitled _The Rape of Helen_. Badcock, who was to enact the part of Menelaus, had at my request attired himself early, for some few of my nightingales were young birds and not to be depended on, and I had an idea of concealing him in the shrubberies to supply a _flauto obbligato_ while our guests arrived. I had interrupted my instructions to despatch him on some small errand connected with the coloured fires, and he had scarcely disappeared among the laurels, when along the path came strolling two figures I recognized as fellow-countrymen--the young Lord Algernon Shafto, of the English embassy, and his mother's brother, the Venerable John Kynaston Worley, Archdeacon of Wells. Lord Algernon wore a domino. His uncle (I need scarcely say) had made no innovation upon the laced hat and gaiters proper to his archidiaconal rank--though it is likely enough that the Venetians found this costume as eccentric as any in the throng. He had arrived in the city a bare week before; and walked with an arm paternally thrust in his nephew's, while he made acquaintance with the luxurious frivolities of a Venetian carnival. "As they passed me I stooped to trim the peccant wick of one of the many lamps disposed like glowworms along the path: but a moment later their voices told me that my countrymen had found a seat a few paces away, in an arbour whence, by the rays of a paper lantern which overhung it, they could observe the passers-by. "'A wonderful nation,' the Archdeacon was saying, in that resonant voice of which the well-connected among the Anglican clergy (and their wives) alone possess the secret. 'I may tell you, my dear lad, that this visit to Venice has been a dream of my life, cherished though long deferred. I had not your advantages when I was a young man. The Grand Tour was denied me; and a country curacy with an increasing family promised to remove the realization of my dream to the Greek Kalends. But in all those years I never quite lost sight of it. There is a bull-dog tenacity in us British: and still from time to time I renewed the promise to myself that, should I survive my dear wife--as I hoped to do--' "Here, having trimmed my lantern, I straightened myself up to find that Mr. Badcock had returned and was standing behind my shoulder. To my amazement he was trembling like an aspen. "'Hush!' said he, when I would have asked what ailed him. "I listened. I suppose Lord Algernon responded with a polite hope that Venice fulfilled his uncle's long expectation: but I could not catch the words. "'Entirely so,' was the reply. 'I may even say that it surpasses them. Such an experience enlarges the mind, the--er--outlook. And if a man of sixty can confess so much, how happy should you be, my dear Algy, to have received these impressions at _your_ age! Yet, my dear lad, remember they are of value only when received upon a previous basis of character. The ladies, for instance, who own these delightful grounds . . . doubtless they are devout, in their way, but in a way how far removed from those God-fearing English traditions which one day, as a landlord among your tenantry and to that extent responsible for the welfare of dependent souls, it will be yours to foster!' "Here, warned by a choking cry, I put out a hand to catch Mr. Badcock by the sleeve of his pallium: but too late! With a wild gesture he broke loose from me and plunged down the pergola towards the arbour, at the entrance of which he flung himself on his knees. "'Oh, sir!' he panted, abasing himself and stretching forth both hands to the archidiaconal gaiters. 'Oh, sir, have pity! Teach me to be saved!' "The Archdeacon (I will say) after the momentary shock rose to the occasion like a sportsman. A glance sufficed to assure him that the poor creature was in earnest, and with great presence of mind he felt in his pocket for a visiting-card. "'Certainly, my good fellow, certainly . . . if you will call on me to-morrow at my lodgings . . . two doors from the embassy. . . . Dear me, how provoking! Would you mind, Algernon, lending me one of your cards? I remember now leaving mine on the dressing-table.' "He fished out a pencil, took the card his nephew proffered and, having written down name and address, handed it to Badcock. "'The door of grace, my friend, stands ever open to him who knocks. . . . Shall we say at ten-thirty to-morrow morning? Yes, yes, a very convenient hour for me, if you have no objection? Farewell, then, until to-morrow!' With a benedictory wave of the hand he linked arms with Lord Algernon and strolled away down the walk. "'Badcock,' said I, stepping forward and clapping a hand on his shoulder. 'Hark to the gong calling you to the masque!' "But the creature stood as in a trance. 'His signature!' he answered in an awed whisper. 'The Archdeacon of Wells's own signature, and upon Lord Algernon's card!'--and I declare to you that he fell to kissing the pasteboard ecstatically. "Well, he was past all reason. Luckily, having written it, I had his part by rote; and so, snatching his Menelaus' wig and beard, I ran towards the theatre. "That, sir, is all my tale. The man is lost to me. He left Venice yesterday in the Archdeacon's carriage, but in what precise capacity--whether as valet, secretary, or courier--he would not impart. He told me, however, that his salary was sufficient, if not ample, and that he had undertaken as a repentant sinner to make himself generally useful. The Archdeacon, it appears, is collecting evidence in particular of the horrors of a Continental Sabbath. "Addio, sir! For me, I have now parted with the last of my comrades, yet my resolution remains unshaken. On this sacred soil, where so many before me have cultivated the Arts, I will do more. I will make them pay. Meanwhile I beg you to accept my sincere regards, and to believe me "Your obliged, obedient servant, "Phineas Fett."
The Trappists (sixteen in number) yet dwell with us, and the left wing of Constantine has been reserved for their use. They have deserved our gratitude, though, out of respect for their rules, I could never convey it to them in words. Indeed, it is but seldom that I get speech even with Dom Basilio. Sometimes when his walk leads him by the river-bank where I stand a-fishing he will seat himself for a while and watch; and then I find a comfort in his presence, as though we conversed together without help of speech. Then also, though my reason disapprove of our guest's rigour, an inward voice tells me that there is good in their religion, as perchance there is good wherever men have found anchorage for their souls. I remember once listening in our summer-house, upon St. Swithun's feast, while my dear brother-in-law disputed with Mr. Grylls upon action and contemplation--which of them was the properer end of man. I thought then that each of them, though they talked up and down and at large, was in truth defending his own temperament: and, because I loved them both, that neither needed defending. For my own part, the small daily cares of Constantine have stolen away from me, not altogether unhappily, the time of choosing, and I ask now but to follow that counsel of the Apostle wherewith my master Walton closed his book, and "Study to be Quiet."
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