William Black

“ By the blood of Saint Peter, Monsieur Brand, you should have heard the quick snap of his box, and seen the heels of him as he darted off like an antelope! I tell you the grave-faced minx, that mocking Natalushka, who makes fun of old people like me—well, she shall not any more be troubled with agates and pebbles!"
"Then she is quite cheerful and happy?" said Brand, somewhat wondering.
"Sometimes," Calabressa said, more gravely. "One cannot always be anxious; one has glimpses of hope; then the spirit rises; the eyes laugh. You, for example, you do not seem much cast down?" ”

“ Do you know that your daughter believes you to have been a miracle of courage and self-reliance? What Calabressa used to say to her was this: 'Natalushka, when you are in trouble you will be brave; you will show yourself the daughter of Natalie Berezolyi.'"
"Yes, yes," she said, quickly, as she again dried her eyes, and drew herself up. "I beg you to pardon me. I have thought so much of this meeting, through all these years, that my hearts beats too quickly now. But I will have no fear. She will come to me; I am not afraid: she will not turn away from me. ”

“ Is it not for a girl to go by her father's advice—her father's wishes? Then she is safe. Anything else is wild, dangerous. My dear, you are far too impulsive. You do not think of consequences. It is all the affair of the moment with you, and how you can do some one you love a kindness at the instant. Your heart is warm, and you are quick to act. All the more reason, I say, that you should go by some one else's judgment; and who can guide you better than your own father?"
"I know already what my father wishes," said Natalie. ”

“ Was it not natural for so beautiful a girl to have a lover? But that this fellow—this foreigner—should degrade her by treating her as if she were a nursery-maid flirting with one of the soldiers from the barracks down there, this filled him with bitterness and hatred. He turned and walked away with a firm step. He had no ill thoughts of her, whatever message she might send him. At the worst, she had been generous to him; she had filled his life with love and hope; she had given him a future. If this dream were shattered, at least he could turn elsewhere, and say, "Labor, be thou my good." ”

“ Brand did not answer. He had risen to his feet; he stood like one bound with chains; there was suffering and an infinite pity in the haggard face.
"Why is not Natalie here?" he said; and it was strange that two men so different from each other as Brand and Calabressa should in such a crisis have had the same instinctive thought. The lives and fates of men were nothing; it was the heart of a girl that concerned them. "They will tell her—some of them over there—they will tell her suddenly that her father is condemned to die! Why is she—among—among strangers?" ”

“ That is not the happiness you should offer to a daughter. But you have not killed him yet—there is time; let things be as they were; that is what my sweetheart, as you call him, will say; he and I are not afraid to suffer. Surely, rather that, than that he should marry a girl so heartless and cowardly as to purchase her happiness at the cost of her father's life?"
"My dear young lady," he said, with a great pity and concern in his face, "I can assure you what you think of is impossible. What is done cannot be undone." ”

“ CHAPTER XLVII. AT PORTICI.
Natalie slept far from soundly the first night after her arrival in Naples; she was glad when the slow, anxious hours, with all their bewildering uncertainties and forebodings, were over. She rose early, and dressed quickly; she threw open the tall French windows to let in the soft silken air from the sea; then she stepped out on the balcony to marvel once more—she who knew Naples well enough—at the shining beauty around her.
It was a morning to give courage to any one; the air was fresh and sweet; she drank deep of the abundant gladness and brightness of the world. ”

“ See, I have brought you a box; and if you want companions, why not ask Miss Lind and Madame Potecki to go with you and show you the ways of our English opera-houses?"
"Ah, the little Natalushka!" said Calabressa, eagerly. "Will she go? Do you think she will go? Ma foi, it is not often I have the chance of taking such a beautiful creature to the opera, if she will go! What must I do?"
"You will have to go and beg her to be kind to you. Say you have the box—you need not mention how: ask if she will escort you, she and Madame Potecki. Say it is a kindness: she cannot help doing a kindness." ”

“ You want to abolish the Corn-laws?—all good society shrieks at you at first: you are a Radical, a regicide, a Judas Iscariot; but in time the nation listens, and the poor have cheap bread. "Mazzini is mad!" the world cries: "why this useless bloodshed? It is only political murder." Mazzini is mad, no doubt: but in time the beautiful dream of Italy—of "Italia, the world's wonder, the world's care"—comes true. ”

“ That was a night of wild unrest for Natalie Lind. It was her father himself who had represented to her all that banishment from his native country meant to an Englishman; and in her heart of hearts she believed that it was through her this doom had befallen George Brand. She knew he would not complain. He professed to her that it was only in the discharge of an ordinary duty he was leaving England: others had suffered more for less reason; it was nothing; why should she blame herself? ”

“ She told me you had seen the locket—Natalie to Natalushka—was not that enough?"
"If Miss Lind herself did not guess that her mother was alive, how should I?"
"If you have been brought up for sixteen or eighteen years to mourn one as dead, you do not quickly imagine that he or she is not dead: you perceive?"
"Well, it is extraordinary enough," said Brand, thoughtfully. "With such a daughter, if she has the heart of a mother at all, how could she remain away from her for sixteen years?" ”

“ Anneli will go with me. All that I ask of you, dear Madame Potecki, is to take the message to my father. You will; will you not?"
"More than that I will do for you," said the little woman, boldly. "I see there is unhappiness; you are suffering, my child. Well, I will plunge into it; I will see your father: this cannot be allowed. It is a dangerous thing to interfere—who knows better than I? But to sit near you is to be inspired; to touch your hand is to gain the courage of a giant. Yes, I will speak to your father; all shall be put right."
The girl scarcely heard her. ”

“ By this time Calabressa had collected himself for the part he was about to play.
"Well, my friend," said he, cheerfully, "what news? When is Europe to hear the fate of the Cardinal?"
"I don't know; I know very little about it," said Reitzei, glancing at him rather suspiciously.
"It is a terrible business," said Calabressa, reflectively, "a decree of the Council. You would think that one so powerful, so well protected, would be able to escape, would you not? But he himself knows better. He knows he is as powerless as you might be, for example, or myself." ”

“ It gave her courage.
"It is true, I am only a girl; you are my elders, and you are men; but I have known good and brave men who were not ashamed to listen to what a woman thought was right; and it is as a woman that I speak to you," she said; and her voice, low and timid as it was, had a strange, pathetic vibration in it, that went to the heart. "I have suffered much of late. I hope no other woman will ever suffer in the same way." ”

“ Face to face with his enemy, he would utter no protest. Then, had he not solemnly promised to Natalie that nothing in the world should tempt him from his allegiance? Why should he shrink from going to America, or prefer London to Philadelphia? He had entered into a service that took no heed of such things.
But when he had parted from Lind and Molyneux, and got out into the sombre glare of the night-world of London, and when there was no further need for that forced composure, he began more clearly to recognize his position, and his heart grew heavy. ”

“ Have we come out from the din and the smoke to the cool evening air? What is that one hears afar in the garden? Surely it is the little Kathchen and her mother singing together, in beautiful harmony, the old, familiar, tender Lorelei! The zither is a strange instrument—it speaks. And when Natalie Lind, coming to this air, sung in a low contralto voice an only half-suggested second, it seemed to those in the room that two women were singing—the one with a voice low and rich and penetrating, the other voice clear and sweet like the singing of a young girl. ”

“ Perhaps you may have some kind friend put that notion into your head. But that is not the reason why I speak firmly to you, why I show you you must dismiss this fancy of the moment—if you have entertained it as well as he—as impossible. I have larger interests at stake; I am bound to sacrifice every personal feeling to my duty. And I have shown you what would be the certain result of such a marriage; therefore, I say, such a marriage is not to be thought of. Come, now, Natalie, you claim to be a woman: be a woman! Something higher is wanted from you. ”

“ For many a day George Brand remembered that little luncheon-party; the dull, bronze glow of the room; the flowers; the soft, downcast eyes opposite him; the bright, pleasant garrulity of the little Polish lady; and always—ah, the delight of it!—that strange, trembling, sweet consciousness that Natalie Lind was listening as he listened—that almost he could have heard the beating of her heart.
And a hundred and a hundred times he swore that, whoever throughout the laboring and suffering world might regret that day, the man Kirski should not. ”

“ Then, in the street outside, Calabressa glanced up at the drawing-room windows just for a second.
"Ah, little daughter," he said to himself as he turned away, "you do not know the power of the talisman I have given you. But you will not use it. You will be happy; you will marry the Englishman; you will have little children round your knee; and you will lead so busy and glad a life, year after year, that you will never have a minute to sit down and think of old Calabressa, or of the stupid little map of Naples he left with you." ”

“ But I cannot forget, you see, that you and I are practically conniving at a murder."
"Hush, hush, my dear friend!" said Calabressa, glancing round. "Be discreet! And what a foolish phrase, too! You—you whose business is merely to translate; to preach; to educate a poor devil of a Russian—what have you to do with it? And to speak of murder! Bah! You do not understand the difference, then, between killing a man as an act of private anger and revenge, and executing a man for crimes [Pg 217] against society? ”

“ Brand sat and listened, recognizing here and there a proud, pathetic phrase of Natalie's, and knowing well whence the inspiration came; and as he listened he almost felt as though that beautiful old place in Buckinghamshire was slipping through his fingers. The sacrifice seemed to be becoming less and less of a sacrifice; it took more and more the form of a duty; would Natalie's eyes smile approval?
Brand jumped up, and took a rapid turn or two up and down the room.
"I won't listen to you, Evelyn. You don't know anything about money-matters. You care for nothing but ideas. ”

“ Natalie said, modestly. "When I am travelling through a country I would rather see plenty of small farms, thriving and prosperous, than splendid ruins that tell only of oppression and extravagance, and the fierceness of war."
No one spoke; so she made bold to continue—but she addressed Lady Evelyn only.
"No doubt it is very picturesque, as you go up the Rhine, or across the See Kreis, or through the Lombard plains, to see every height crowned with its castle. Yes, one cannot help admiring. They are like beautiful flowers that have blossomed up from the valleys and the plains below. ”

“ Lord Evelyn cried, almost in despair. "You cannot shift the responsibility to them. You are answerable for your own actions. I say you are sacrificing your conscience to your pride. You are saying to yourself, 'Do these foreigners think that I am afraid?'"
"I am not thinking of myself at all," said Brand, simply; "that is all over. When I swore to give myself to this Society—to obey the commands of the Council—then my responsibility ceased. What I have to do is to be faithful to my oath, and to the promise I have made." Almost unconsciously he glanced at the ring that Natalie had given him. ”

“ And no wonder, if you happen to belong to a great association that has promised to see justice done, no wonder you come to that association and say, 'Masters, why cannot justice be done now? It is too long to wait for the Millennium. Remove this oppressor from the face of the earth: down with the Starving Cardinal!'"
"Yes, yes, yes!" cried Reitzei, excitedly. Beratinsky sat silent and sullen. Brand, with some strange foreboding of what was coming, still sat with his hand tight closed on Natalie's ring. ”