CHAPTER IV.
FASCINATION.
It takes time to rise to the surface. And Gwynplaine had been throwninto an abyss of stupefaction.
We do not gain our footing at once in unknown depths.
There are routs of ideas, as there are routs of armies. The rally is notimmediate.
We feel as it were scattered--as though some strange evaporation of selfwere taking place.
God is the arm, chance is the sling, man is the pebble. How are you toresist, once flung?
Gwynplaine, if we may coin the expression, ricocheted from one surpriseto another. After the love letter of the duchess came the revelation inthe Southwark dungeon.
In destiny, when wonders begin, prepare yourself for blow upon blow. Thegloomy portals once open, prodigies pour in. A breach once made in thewall, and events rush upon us pell-mell. The marvellous never comessingly.
The marvellous is an obscurity. The shadow of this obscurity was overGwynplaine. What was happening to him seemed unintelligible. He saweverything through the mist which a deep commotion leaves in the mind,like the dust caused by a falling ruin. The shock had been from top tobottom. Nothing was clear to him. However, light always returns bydegrees. The dust settles. Moment by moment the density of astonishmentdecreases. Gwynplaine was like a man with his eyes open and fixed in adream, as if trying to see what may be within it. He dispersed the mist.Then he reshaped it. He had intermittances of wandering. He underwentthat oscillation of the mind in the unforeseen which alternately pushesus in the direction in which we understand, and then throws us back inthat which is incomprehensible. Who has not at some time felt thispendulum in his brain?
By degrees his thoughts dilated in the darkness of the event, as thepupil of his eye had done in the underground shadows at Southwark. Thedifficulty was to succeed in putting a certain space between accumulatedsensations. Before that combustion of hazy ideas called comprehensioncan take place, air must be admitted between the emotions. There air waswanting. The event, so to speak, could not be breathed.
In entering that terrible cell at Southwark, Gwynplaine had expected theiron collar of a felon; they had placed on his head the coronet of apeer. How could this be? There had not been space of time enough betweenwhat Gwynplaine had feared and what had really occurred; it hadsucceeded too quickly--his terror changing into other feelings tooabruptly for comprehension. The contrasts were too tightly packed oneagainst the other. Gwynplaine made an effort to withdraw his mind fromthe vice.
He was silent. This is the instinct of great stupefaction, which is moreon the defensive than it is thought to be. Who says nothing is preparedfor everything. A word of yours allowed to drop may be seized in someunknown system of wheels, and your utter destruction be compassed in itscomplex machinery.
The poor and weak live in terror of being crushed. The crowd ever expectto be trodden down. Gwynplaine had long been one of the crowd.
A singular state of human uneasiness can be expressed by the words: Letus see what will happen. Gwynplaine was in this state. You feel that youhave not gained your equilibrium when an unexpected situation surges upunder your feet. You watch for something which must produce a result.You are vaguely attentive. We will see what happens. What? You do notknow. Whom? You watch.
The man with the paunch repeated, "You are in your own house, my lord."
Gwynplaine felt himself. In surprises, we first look to make sure thatthings exist; then we feel ourselves, to make sure that we existourselves. It was certainly to him that the words were spoken; but hehimself was somebody else. He no longer had his jacket on, or hisesclavine of leather. He had a waistcoat of cloth of silver; and a satincoat, which he touched and found to be embroidered. He felt a heavypurse in his waistcoat pocket. A pair of velvet trunk hose covered hisclown's tights. He wore shoes with high red heels. As they had broughthim to this palace, so had they changed his dress.
The man resumed,--
"Will your lordship deign to remember this: I am called Barkilphedro; Iam clerk to the Admiralty. It was I who opened Hardquanonne's flask anddrew your destiny out of it. Thus, in the 'Arabian Nights' a fishermanreleases a giant from a bottle."
Gwynplaine fixed his eyes on the smiling face of the speaker.
Barkilphedro continued:--
"Besides this palace, my lord, Hunkerville House, which is larger, isyours. You own Clancharlie Castle, from which you take your title, andwhich was a fortress in the time of Edward the Elder. You have nineteenbailiwicks belonging to you, with their villages and their inhabitants.This puts under your banner, as a landlord and a nobleman, about eightythousand vassals and tenants. At Clancharlie you are a judge--judge ofall, both of goods and of persons--and you hold your baron's court. Theking has no right which you have not, except the privilege of coiningmoney. The king, designated by the Norman law as chief signor, hasjustice, court, and coin. Coin is money. So that you, excepting in thislast, are as much a king in your lordship as he is in his kingdom. Youhave the right, as a baron, to a gibbet with four pillars in England;and, as a marquis, to a scaffold with seven posts in Sicily: that of themere lord having two pillars; that of a lord of the manor, three; andthat of a duke, eight. You are styled prince in the ancient charters ofNorthumberland. You are related to the Viscounts Valentia in Ireland,whose name is Power; and to the Earls of Umfraville in Scotland, whosename is Angus. You are chief of a clan, like Campbell, Ardmannach, andMacallummore. You have eight barons' courts--Reculver, Baston,Hell-Kerters, Homble, Moricambe, Grundraith, Trenwardraith, and others.You have a right over the turf-cutting of Pillinmore, and over thealabaster quarries near Trent. Moreover, you own all the country ofPenneth Chase; and you have a mountain with an ancient town on it. Thetown is called Vinecaunton; the mountain is called Moilenlli. All whichgives you an income of forty thousand pounds a year. That is to say,forty times the five-and-twenty thousand francs with which a Frenchmanis satisfied."
Whilst Barkilphedro spoke, Gwynplaine, in a crescendo of stupor,remembered the past. Memory is a gulf that a word can move to its lowestdepths. Gwynplaine knew all the words pronounced by Barkilphedro. Theywere written in the last lines of the two scrolls which lined the van inwhich his childhood had been passed, and, from so often letting his eyeswander over them mechanically, he knew them by heart. On reaching, aforsaken orphan, the travelling caravan at Weymouth, he had found theinventory of the inheritance which awaited him; and in the morning, whenthe poor little boy awoke, the first thing spelt by his careless andunconscious eyes was his own title and its possessions. It was a strangedetail added to all his other surprises, that, during fifteen years,rolling from highway to highway, the clown of a travelling theatre,earning his bread day by day, picking up farthings, and living oncrumbs, he should have travelled with the inventory of his fortuneplacarded over his misery.
Barkilphedro touched the casket on the table with his forefinger.
"My lord, this casket contains two thousand guineas which her graciousMajesty the Queen has sent you for your present wants."
Gwynplaine made a movement.
"That shall be for my Father Ursus," he said.
"So be it, my lord," said Barkilphedro. "Ursus, at the Tadcaster Inn.The Serjeant of the Coif, who accompanied us hither, and is about toreturn immediately, will carry them to him. Perhaps I may go to Londonmyself. In that case I will take charge of it."
"I shall take them to him myself," said Gwynplaine.
Barkilphedro's smile disappeared, and he said,--"Impossible!"
There is an impressive inflection of voice which, as it were, underlinesthe words. Barkilphedro's tone was thus emphasized; he paused, so as toput a full stop after the word he had just uttered. Then he continued,with the peculiar and respectful tone of a servant who feels that he ismaster,--
"My lord, you are twenty-three miles from London, at Corleone Lodge,your court residence, contiguous to the Royal Castle of Windsor. You arehere unknown to any one. You were brought here in a close carriage,which was awaiting you at the gate
of the jail at Southwark. Theservants who introduced you into this palace are ignorant who you are;but they know me, and that is sufficient. You may possibly have beenbrought to these apartments by means of a private key which is in mypossession. There are people in the house asleep, and it is not an hourto awaken them. Hence we have time for an explanation, which,nevertheless, will be short. I have been commissioned by her Majesty--"
As he spoke, Barkilphedro began to turn over the leaves of some bundlesof papers which were lying near the casket.
"My lord, here is your patent of peerage. Here is that of your Sicilianmarquisate. These are the parchments and title-deeds of your eightbaronies, with the seals of eleven kings, from Baldret, King of Kent, toJames the Sixth of Scotland, and first of England and Scotland united.Here are your letters of precedence. Here are your rent-rolls, andtitles and descriptions of your fiefs, freeholds, dependencies, lands,and domains. That which you see above your head in the emblazonment onthe ceiling are your two coronets: the circlet with pearls for thebaron, and the circlet with strawberry leaves for the marquis.
"Here, in the wardrobe, is your peer's robe of red velvet, bordered withermine. To-day, only a few hours since, the Lord Chancellor and theDeputy Earl Marshal of England, informed of the result of yourconfrontation with the Comprachico Hardquanonne, have taken herMajesty's commands. Her Majesty has signed them, according to her royalwill, which is the same as the law. All formalities have been compliedwith. To-morrow, and no later than to-morrow, you will take your seat inthe House of Lords, where they have for some days been deliberating on abill, presented by the crown, having for its object the augmentation, bya hundred thousand pounds sterling yearly, of the annual allowance tothe Duke of Cumberland, husband of the queen. You will be able to takepart in the debate."
Barkilphedro paused, breathed slowly, and resumed.
"However, nothing is yet settled. A man cannot be made a peer ofEngland without his own consent. All can be annulled and disappear,unless you acquiesce. An event nipped in the bud ere it ripens oftenoccurs in state policy. My lord, up to this time silence has beenpreserved on what has occurred. The House of Lords will not be informedof the facts until to-morrow. Secrecy has been kept about the wholematter for reasons of state, which are of such importance that theinfluential persons who alone are at this moment cognizant of yourexistence, and of your rights, will forget them immediately shouldreasons of state command their being forgotten. That which is indarkness may remain in darkness. It is easy to wipe you out; the more soas you have a brother, the natural son of your father and of a woman whoafterwards, during the exile of your father, became mistress to KingCharles II., which accounts for your brother's high position at court;for it is to this brother, bastard though he be, that your peerage wouldrevert. Do you wish this? I cannot think so. Well, all depends on you.The queen must be obeyed. You will not quit the house till to-morrow ina royal carriage, and to go to the House of Lords. My lord, will you bea peer of England; yes or no? The queen has designs for you. Shedestines you for an alliance almost royal. Lord Fermain Clancharlie,this is the decisive moment. Destiny never opens one door withoutshutting another. After a certain step in advance, to step back isimpossible. Whoso enters into transfiguration, leaves behind himevanescence. My lord, Gwynplaine is dead. Do you understand?"
Gwynplaine trembled from head to foot.
Then he recovered himself.
"Yes," he said.
Barkilphedro, smiling, bowed, placed the casket under his cloak, andleft the room.