Novelist.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2513, 18 August 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

Novelist.

Througli Deep Waters. BY INA LEON CASSILIS, Author of " lima Raphael, Actress," " The Young Widower," " M. CadcHe's Carpet Bag," &c. f &c. CHAPTER XXIV. " Sir Selwyn," said Grant-Faulk-ncr's servant, entering that gentleman's handsome chambers in the Albany, " Two gentlemen are waiting, and wish to see you." " Grant-Faulkner laid down the "Times," and took.the cards from the man. " I cannot see them, he said, flushing slightly. "An unseemly hour ; it is not yet ten o'clock ; moreover, I can hold no intercourse with Don Cola de Cambaceres. Monsieur Von Elsinger may, if he pleases, call later." The servant bowed and retired, and Grant-Faulkner turned again to the paragraph which he had been reading when interrupted by the unwelcome visitors. "A singular rumour," so ran the paragraph, " is afloat to the effect that a cause celebre which will surpass any cause of recent time, will ere long occupy the attention of the public. The point at issue concerns a large

property and the right to a baronetacy connected with one of the oldest names among the untitled aristocracy, and the plaintiff is said to be an artist of European fame, and who was during the season just passed, the favourite of London hfiut ton. We give the rumour for what it is worth, but a few days will, doubt, less, either strengthen it or prove it to be simply one of those on dits with which the ' silly season' - fill in London atmosphere."

" Prove it if ho can," muttered Grant-Faulkner, flinging the paper aside. " For revenge on Florence I would have risked all, and if he had not crossed my path his path might have been more smooth ; but after all, I have redeemed the debt I owed Florence Hyde, and this man, who but for me had never lived, snatches from mejwhat I had risked so much to gain, and then scorns me to my face. By Heaven, he shall rue it." The door opened again—the servant re-appeared. " Sir, Don Cola will take no refusal. He must see . you, he said, and now." Grant-Faulkner rose, white not with passion alone. Coward at heart, he feared the man whom he could not despise. "Very well," he said, " admit him, since he is content to enter a gentleman's presence in so bandit-like a fashion." The servant went out again, and in another moment ushered in Cambaceres and Elsinger ; both bowed coldly ; even Elsinger did not offer his hand to Sir Selwyn, and that gentleman did not respond to the salute of his visitors, nor ask them to be seated, but said at once, and haughtily, "To what, Don Cola, do I owe this intrusion—so I must call it—into my presence at this early hour, and to what, if you have business with me that cannot be deferred for an hour or two, do I owe what appears to me the unnecessary addition to the interview of M. von Elsinger ?" " I am come, Sir Selwyn," replied the painter, " upon business which certainly cannot lie deferred ; and my friend M. von Klsinger accompanies me simply because it is expedient that tliwe should be a witness to what passes between you and me. These must be my apologies, and I wjll detain you as short a time as possible." " You waste Italian courtesies of manner ou an occasion like the present," said Grant-Faulkner, impatiently. "Throw aside the velvet glove and let the steel gauntlet show itself plainly. I believe I can tell you, as well as you can tell me, what you came here to seek or demand— put it which way you will—but—" " I would advise you, Sir Selwyn, not to speak rashly," said the painter, coolly. " Let me state my case first, and then consider your reply before you make it. I have seen Lady de Clifford. I have obtained lier solemn promise—l hold it here in her own handwriting—to give full and unreserved evidence of all that she knows concerning the abduction of Rafael Cola de Clifford. It is needless for me to say that her evidence will directly implicate you, and that you will, of course, be subpoenaed and subjected to cross-ex-amination. Ursula Lauibourne has also consented to reveal all that she knows. I say consented, but, in truth, she had no choice left her, as Lady de Clifford's evidence would implicate her as much as it will implicate you ] and in both cases it is better to consent to give evidence than to be compelled to do so, or to be driven to the other alternative to which I shall not hesitate to resort that of appearing as defendant in a criminal charge. To this charge Lady de Clifford would plead guilty; the waiting woman, Lambourne, do the same. lam not speaking on assumption, but on the authority of their own statements, which, if it please you, both will repeat in your hearing. I will leave you ten minutes or more to consider over your position, and I think you will arrive at the conclusion that it will be difficult for you to prove your innocence against not only the evidence of Lady de Clifford and her servant, but against that also of other witnesses who can depose to business communications with you in connection with the child of Sir Herbert de Clifford."

Grant-Faulkner had listened to the painter with a face of deadly pallor, with eyes cast down and clenched trembling hands. The position which at one time he contemplated in the fury of revenge was forced upon him by the very man who years before he had tiesigned as the instrument of his vengeance. Like a stag at bay he saw no means of escape, till after a short pause one hope flashed before hini, and he said jeeringly— " What if I still refuse to lend my aid, and you bring an action for conspiracy against Lady de Clifford, Ursula Lambourne, and myself; can you prove it ? and if you fail to prove it will your position be improved by it 1 It is a question of identity ; you are not necessarily the child whom you allege to have been stolen from Sir Herbert de Clifford." " Certainly not, Sir Selwyn ; but you seem to forget that your crime does not consist in the fact of that child being alive. This question of conspiracy is not one of indentity but of a specific crime which, if proved against you, would subject you to punishment, whether that child be living or dead. I may afford to put aside for the present any evidence which I hope to obtain from Spain and from Italy with re-

gard to you; and confine myself simply to that which you know as well as I know to be forthcoming. This you can weigh in your own mind. I need not recapitulate it. But this I will say," he added, fixing his brilliant eyes full on the eyes that wavered, and finally fell before them ; " if you once cb»ose to brave the criminal charge, you 'set your life upon a cast if it fail — well, perhaps, for you, but if it succeed, you have risked all and lost all. If, on the other hand, you accept my conditions, and appear as witness in a civil case, though your evidence will criminate you, yet I shall not prosecute, and the Crown will not prosecute you nor compel me to do so. I give you this guarantee legally on the authority of eminent English advocates—l give it you morally on my honour as a Christian gentleman, and (if that pledge seems to you but a light thing to trust), it is hardly likely that I should wish to drag forward as a criminal the woman who for seventeen years passed as the mother of my betrothed wife; although I shall not hesitate to pursue that course if it be the only one left to me. She has not deserved at my hands the sacrifice of my mother's fair fame and my father's noble name. I will add also that thoughts of escape are futile. You have been watched for the last two days, and you are watched now. Consider all these things, and give me an answer, Sir Selwyn." He folded his arms, waiting quietly, noting covertly—it was an artistic study—the changes of that livid face opposite to him. Elsinger standing near his friend looked from one to the other, and his eye dwelt longest on the noble picture, the erect graceful form whose very bearing claimed the lineage of knights and gentles, the face grave, stern, calm, the antithesis of that countenance before it, its beauty and form and of morale contrasting strangely with those fair ordinary features distorted by evil passions. For full five minutes there was deadly silence ; then GrantFaulkner spoke hoarsely—now, thoroughly baffled,' the man had lost even the power to sneer : " As you will," he said, " I have no more to say. You have got the law in your favour, and I must submit. I will—perhaps you will say I must—give evidence." , Cambaceres bowed. " Very well, Sir Selwyn, my business with you is then concluded; I will take my leave at once. Adieu," But Grant-Faulkner turned away, and the two artists left the apartment without another word. " Cola," said Elsinger, as they passed out into Piccadilly, " that man's face was awful! It has crossed my mind whether he will, perchance, attempt to take his own life." Cambaceres half smiled and shook his head, and the smile was scornful enough, " He has a coward's soul," he said, " he dare not lift his hand against his life. The man who could turn as he did, from the prayer of such a woman as Agnes de Stradella, is not the man who will face death from his own hand or from the hand of another. " You are right. La Rochefoucald says that every man has au Joncl some odious vice, a statement ■which is as cynical as it is, speaking so broadly, monstrously untrue ; but its opposite has a more universal application. There are few, if any men, who are irredeemably bad ; yet I cannot perceive one good, one vulnerable point in the man we have just left." " Yet there may be, God knows," said the painter, " or there may have been years ago; but his greatest failing is that he I is coldblooded, and cold-blooded men are often cruel—cruelty with them is a passion—the only one they have." Elsinger smiled. " I am afraid I am cold-blooded compared to you, Cola. Byron, you know, says — ' The cold in clime arc cold in blood.'" "You cold, Albrechtl No; you may not be what you* called me once, a slumbering volcano, but I could give no love to a cold-blooded man; it is a failing I never can pardon." "The antagonism is too strong between you and such men," said the German, " and, certainly, it is no failing of la bella. Do you go down to Westminster now 1" " Aye, home ; then, the solicitors in Lincoln's Inn, and—" " And then ?" " To Grosvenor-street, Albrecht." " Ah! well, if I am not de troj) I will accompany you to Westminster, and to Lincoln's Inn, and as far as the drawing-room of Grosvenorstreet, to know how Agnes is. What are you going to do about the West Indian, Spanish and Italian evidence V " I shall speak to the solicitors to-day about sending out a clever man to the Spanish Main, I shall go myself to Cadiz and Italy, as soon as Agnes is well enough, Dr Delwyn told me last night that he hoped to be able to send her to Italy in another fortnight, now that the autumn is approaehing, he is especially anxious to get her out of England and back to her native climate. I shall escort her and ■ Lady Magdalen Hyde as far as ■ Nice, where they go first, and then "I go direct to Florence. After ; about ten days they will, if Agnes i is strong enough, travel on to • Venice—that is her wish —her

father's native place, where her relatives live now." "It will be many months before your cause can be heard," said Elsinger ; " will Lady de Clifford remain in Paris till she is required for evidence?" "I think so. At any rate till the winter, when the season would bring to Paris many who might know her. Her flight is already known and commented on. I have authoritatively contradicted such rumours as I have heard, but a paragraph I met with to-day in a daily paper had got hold of some of the truth concerning Agnes, and connected it with Lady de Clifford's disappearance. Here we are at Westminster. How many changes have been wrought in the few months that have elapsed since I first entered this house! " And with his usual kindly greeting to Anselmo, always delighted to see him, if after only a day's absence, he passed up to the library with Elsinger. He ran rapidly through the letters awaiting him, read one, threw others aside, and without waiting to answer any, took his way in less than twenty minutes to the offices of Messrs •, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. CHAPTER XXV. The first week in September saw the shutters up in the Clifford mansion, in Upper Grosvenor-street, and in the house of the Spanish painter in Great Queen-street. Town was empty, but the papers and the London correspondents of country papers found almost enough to fill up the usual paucity of news, which is the curse of the " silly season," in talking of the approaching cause celebre in scraping up every imaginable bit of news they could gather, and manufacturing news where the real article was not forthcoming, or was not sufficiently sensational. "Our correspondent in Florence" had ascertained on authority, which, were he at liberty to name it, would be sufficient to guarantee the accuracy of the statement, that Cambaceres, who was in Florence engaged in seeking evidence in support of his claim, had become possessed of most startling evidence in his favour; among other things a boatman on the Arno had recognised him, and would undertako to swear positively that he had rescued him as a child from the waves of that turbid river. Another correspondent had (on paper) " interviewed" the great painter, and a Loudon daily gave a column of leaded type to be the scene between the artist and the correspondent, whose enterprise was not to be daunted by the chilling information vouchsafed to him at the doors of Cambaceres' Hotel, that the Signor Don Cola did not see persons connected with the press. In Rome Bertram de Clifford aud the painter had met, and the former had declared that the latter was a bold impostor, and that ho would use every means in his power to prevent the anciont name and lands of Clifford-Ardeley from passing into the possession of an alien. This report reaching the eyes of Bertram de Clifford, he wrote a letter to the Times, which in all essential particulars contradicted it. He had met Don Cola, he said, and was pleased to have become acquainted with so famous a man; but so far from offering to make any captious opposition to the claim, his sole plea was " let right be done." He should simply call upon the painter to make full proof of his claim, and if that were done he should be glad to see the lands of Clifford-Ardeley in the hands of their rightful owner.

Agnes, of course, enjoyed a considerable share of newspaper notoriety, an " Occasional Correspondent " saw her at Venice, " perfectly restored to health," and entered into a minute description of the person and attire of the " beautiful Mademoiselle di Stradella," who as Miss de Clifford, the supposed heiress of Clifford-Ardeley, was the belle of the late season. The photographs of the young Venetian Signorina, who was to stand in the peculiar position of receiving, through her guardians, a notice of ejectment from her betrothed husband, vied in popularity with those of the painter ; and in fine more than half the evidence in the case itself was ready before hearing ! It came on in the Eastern Term, and the popular interest had by this time reached such a pitch, that the crowds who could not even find their way into Westminster Hall, thronged the approaches to the court, as the reporters' phrase runs, in order to catch flying, rumours of what passed within, and for the chance of seeing the actors in the drama enter the theatre of operations. Certainly the features of the trial were romantic enough to warrant the excitement it created, and the high position of those principally concerned in it caused perhaps a larger assemblage of aristocratic personages than had ever before — at least for many long years— sought admittance to the Court of Common Pleas, and for three days the public were kept on the qui vive, and the evening papers containing the " Latest Particulars " brought in a golden harvest to their proprietors. The action of ejectment was brought against the guardians of Agnes Margherita di Stradella, known as Agnes Marglierita de Clifford, by Doa Cola-Maria de Cambaceres, claiming to be the son

and heir of the late Sir Herbert de Clifford of Clifford Ardeley. The reply of the guardians was an unreserved admission that their ward was not entitled ? and they courted proof of this statement. The sympathy of the general public had, of course, been all along in favour of the Spanish painter, and this sympathy was strengthened by the evidence offered in support of his claim. Florence de Clifford was the first witness called, and made a full statement of the abduction of Sir Herbert's son, not concealing the motives which had led to the crime. Sir Selwyn Grant-Faulkner was next called, and stated that he had taken the child, that he had placed it originally with a woman named Jacinta Aranjuez, residing in Cadiz ; that he after a lapse of four years, removed the boy to France, to the care of Jean Baptiste Monneau, who kept a school near Aries, in Provence. From this school, at the age of seven, the lad was taken to Italy, and placed at a school under the charge of the Jesuit Fathers, in Rome, where he was till at the age of twelve or thirteen he entered the studio of the painter Morella. When he was fourteen an Italian noble left him a fortune (the amount of which the witness did not know), and he then had no further connection with him, save that he never lost sight of him. He had from the beginning called him by the name under which the world had known him, not bung aware that Cola was one of his real names ; and he had passed him as a West Indian half-caste, a Spanish Creole. The boy was never allowed to know who paid for his education and support, and was left to infer that it was some one known to his late father. He ha:l gone to the artist's study in Rome as a stranger, and Don Cola had not known till lately that the witness had known him from his infancy. In conclusion, Sir Selwyn handed up the marriage certificate of Sir Herbert de Clifford and Beatriz de Cavaldos; a beautiful miniature portrait of a child, which, he said, was a portrait of Rafael Cola de Clifford, and a locket, taken from the child's neck. The miniature created a "sensation," it represented a child of apparently ten or twelve months old, and great as was the change which six-and-twenty years had wrought in the painter, there was a likeness which could be easily traced by anyone with a correct eye for form. The marked character of Cambacares' face made it, even in early childhood, stand out distinct from all ordinary childish faces. There was in this portrait a delicate chiselling, the perfect form of maturer years, a face so unique, so set apart by its singular beauty and maturity of expression, that a recognition of identity between the picture and the child and the grown man himself was to many persons no effort of the mind or assumption from a forgone conclusion. That Florence de Clifford had failed to recognise her husband's son, seemed to those who perceived the likeness, strange ; but to the eye that grasps form and comparison nothing is less comprehensible than the lack of that perception in others. In addition to this the child wore a locket round its neck of Indian workmanship and of peculiar shape, identical in design with the locket handed up by Grant-Faulkner.

The evidence of Ursula Lambourne was little more than corroborative of that which had preceded it; and Merced Rodriguez was next called. Her evidence was given in a manner which carried conviction of the witness's honesty. She never wavered once, and cross-examination did not shake her one iota. The. portrait of Rafael de Calvados supported her testimony. The likeness between the Spanish lad of fifteen and the man who claimed to be his nephew was too marked to escape the observation of the most unobservant. The identity of this portrait of Calvados was proved conclusively, and two witnesses, Don It anion de Calvados and a West Indian lady, who had known Beatriz de Calvados, had picked out Cambaceres from among from a number of other persons, simply from his likeness to Rafael. The marriage of Sir Herbert and Dona Beatriz was proved without difficulty ; the evidence in support of it was, indeed, superabundant. Jacinta Aranjuez supported Sir Selwyn's testimony, and Madame Monneau (her husband was dead), gave similar evidence. Both swore without a moment's hesitation that the plaintiff was the child they had had under their care, and that Grant-Faulkner was the man who had placed the child with them. Padre Luigi della Corta, a Jesuit, attached to the school at Rome, gave similar evidence of identity, and stated that Sir Selwyn had placed young Cola with the Fathers, telling them that he was a West Indian, the son of a Spanish hidalgo, of whom he (Sir Selwyn) was a friend. The miniature, at present in the possession of Don Ramon de Calvados, was also produced, and in this, as in the other, the locket appeared.

This was the plaintiff's case, and it was difficult to contravene. There were no discrepancies, no links wanting, no failure on the part of the witnesses; in addition to this the plaintiff undertook to prove that the present possessor of Clifford-Ardely had no claim to the property, and

the counsel was instructed to admit the allegation, and to raise no objection to the hearing of per se irrelevant evidence. {To be continued).