"Ah," said Harley, "you will soon leave our cold shores. May sunshine settle on you all!" He paused, and looked up at the closed windows wistfully.
"The signorina sleeps there," said Giacomo, in a husky voice, "just over the room in which you slept."
"I knew it," muttered Harley. "An instinct told me of it. Open the gate; I must go home. My excuses to your lord, and to all."
He turned a deaf ear to Giacomo's entreaties to stay till at least the signorina was up,—the signorina whom he had saved. Without trusting himself to speak further, he quitted the demesne, and walked with swift strides towards London.
CHAPTER X
Harley had not long reached his hotel, and was still seated before his untasted breakfast, when Mr. Randal Leslie was announced. Randal, who was in the firm belief that Violante was now on the wide seas with Peschiera, entered, looking the very personation of anxiety and fatigue. For like the great Cardinal Richelieu, Randal had learned the art how to make good use of his own delicate and somewhat sickly aspect. The cardinal, when intent on some sanguinary scheme requiring unusual vitality and vigour, contrived to make himself look a harmless sufferer at death's door. And Randal, whose nervous energies could at that moment have whirled him from one end of this huge metropolis to the other, with a speed that would have outstripped a prize pedestrian, now sank into a chair with a jaded weariness that no mother could have seen without compassion. He seemed since the last night to have galloped towards the last stage of consumption.
"Have you discovered no trace, my Lord? Speak, speak!"
"Speak! certainly. I am too happy to relieve your mind, Mr. Leslie. What fools we were! Ha, ha!"
"Fools—how?" faltered Randal.
"Of course; the young lady was at her father's house all the time."
"Eh? what?"
"And is there now."
"It is not possible!" said Randal, in the hollow, dreamy tone of a somnambulist. "At her father's house, at Norwood! Are you sure?"
"Sure."
Randal made a desperate and successful effort at self-control. "Heaven be praised!" he cried. "And just as I had begun to suspect the count, the marchesa; for I find that neither of them slept at home last night; and Levy told me that the count had written to him, requesting the baron to discharge his bills, as he should be for some time absent from England."
"Indeed! Well, that is nothing to us,—very much to Baron Levy, if he executes his commission, and discharges the bills. What! are you going already?"
"Do you ask such a question? How can I stay? I must go to Norwood,— must see Violante with my own eyes! Forgive my emotion—I—I—"
Randal snatched at his hat and hurried away. The low scornful laugh of Harley followed him as he went.
"I have no more doubt of his guilt than Leonard has. Violante at least shall not be the prize of that thin-lipped knave. What strange fascination can he possess, that he should thus bind to him the two men I value most,—Audley Egerton and Alphonso di Serrano? Both so wise too!— one in books, one in action. And both suspicious men! While I, so imprudently trustful and frank—Ah, that is the reason; our natures are antipathetic; cunning, simulation, falsehood, I have no mercy, no pardon for these. Woe to all hypocrites if I were a grand Inquisitor!"
"Mr. Richard Avenel," said the waiter, throwing open the door.
Harley caught at the arm of the chair on which he sat, and grasped it nervously, while his eyes became fixed intently on the form of the gentleman who now advanced into the room. He rose with an effort.
"Mr. Avenel!" he said falteringly. "Did I hear your name aright? Avenel!"
"Richard Avenel, at your service, my Lord," answered Dick. "My family is not unknown to you; and I am not ashamed of my family, though my parents were small Lansmere tradesfolks, and I am—ahem!—a citizen of the world, and well-to-do!" added Dick, dropping his kid gloves into his hat, and then placing the hat on the table, with the air of an old acquaintance who wishes to make himself at home. Lord L'Estrange bowed and said, as be reseated himself (Dick being firmly seated already), "You are most welcome, sir; and if there be anything I can do for one of your name—"
"Thank you, my Lord," interrupted Dick. "I want nothing of any man. A bold word to say; but I say it. Nevertheless, I should not have presumed to call on your Lordship, unless, indeed, you had done me the honour to call first at my house, Eaton Square, No. —- I should not have presumed to call if it had not been on business,—public business, I may say— NATIONAL business!"
Harley bowed again. A faint smile flitted for a moment to his lip, but, vanishing, gave way to a mournful, absent expression of countenance, as he scanned the handsome features before him, and, perhaps, masculine and bold though they were, still discovered something of a family likeness to one whose beauty had once been his ideal of female loveliness; for suddenly he stretched forth his hand, and said, with more than his usual cordial sweetness, "Business or not business, let us speak to each other as friends,—for the sake of a name that takes me back to Lansmere, to my youth. I listen to you with interest."
Richard Avenel, much surprised by this unexpected kindliness, and touched, he knew not why, by the soft and melancholy tone of Harley's voice, warmly pressed the hand held out to him; and seized with a rare fit of shyness, coloured and coughed and hemmed and looked first down, then aside, before he could find the words which were generally ready enough at his command.
"You are very good, Lord L'Estrange; nothing can be handsomer. I feel it here, my Lord," striking his buff waistcoat,—"I do, 'pon my honour. But not to waste your time (time's money), I come to the point. It is about the borough of Lansmere. Your family interest is very strong in that borough; but excuse me if I say that I don't think you are aware that I too have cooked up a pretty considerable interest on the other side. No offence,—opinions are free. And the popular tide runs strong with us— I mean with me—at the impending crisis,—that is, at the next election. Now, I have a great respect for the earl your father, and so have those who brought me into the world—my father, John, was always a regular good Blue,—and my respect for yourself since I came into this room has gone up in the market a very great rise indeed,—considerable. So I should just like to see if we could set our heads together, and settle the borough between us two, in a snug private way, as public men ought to do when they get together, nobody else by, and no necessity for that sort of humbug, which is so common in this rotten old country. Eh, my Lord?"
"Mr. Avenel," said Harley, slowly, recovering himself from the abstraction with which he had listened to Dick's earlier sentences, "I fear I do not quite understand you; but I have no other interest in the next election for the borough of Lansmere than as may serve one whom, whatever be your politics, you must acknowledge to be—"
"A humbug!"
"Mr. Avenel, you cannot mean the person I mean. I speak of one of the first statesmen of our time,—of Mr. Audley Egerton, of—"
"A stiff-necked, pompous—"
"My earliest and dearest friend."
The rebuke, though gently said, sufficed to silence Dick for a moment; and when he spoke again, it was in an altered tone.
"I beg your pardon, my Lord, I am sure. Of course, I can say nothing disrespectful of your friend,—very sorry that he is your friend. In that case, I am almost afraid that nothing is to be done. But Mr. Audley Egerton has not a chance.
"Let me convince you of this." And Dick pulled out a little book, bound neatly in red.