Mr. Barnes of New York : a novel

Front matter

_ Sixpence.

Tow

NOTABLE BOOKS. Sixpence.

Book II, An Episode Of The Paris Salon

CHAPTER Y.

A OURIOUS PICTURE - - - - - = « « 293 vi CONTENTS.

PAGE CHAPTER Wa; PURSUED ° . : 5 . “ : ° 3l CHAPTER VIL THE LYONS EXPRESS » - - - - - - 34 CHAPTER ayilLie CONQUERED ! . 2 5 es 2 a a “ 39 CHAPTER ols “WILL GOD NEVER GIVE HIM TO ME?” - - - . * 45 CHAPTER 2k.

THE ANGEL OF THE EGYPTIAN HOSPITAL - ° a - - 50 CHAPTHR AI.

“THE OTHER ONE” - = - - - ~ ° ° 54 BOOK III.

THE ENCOUNTER AT MONTE CARLO. CHAPTER XII, “TA BELLE BLACKWOOD” .- < - - . ° - 60 GHAPTER XII.

“BORROW IT FROM BARNES” - - ° - : - 65

CHAPTER XIV.

THE TELEGRAM FROM GIBRALTAR - - - ° ° “ 70

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XY.

CHAPTER XVI.

LOVE’S BATTLE : = : 7 p jeLO LORIE

A NEW CRIME.

CHAPTER XVII.

“YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN YOU ARE A CORSICAN” - a‘

CHAPTER XVI

SATAN ENTERS PARADISE ~ - :

CHAPTER XIX.

BATAN LAUGHS - - - = ie

CHAPTER XX.

THE VALISE MARKED “G. A” : 7 :

BOO Ken.

THE CORSICAN WEDDING.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE HOME OF THE VENDETTA - - = =

Vii

E9 viii CONTENTS 4) 0) 2 CHAPTER XXII.

“mO-NIGHT I AM A CORSICAN” - - 4 er 4 . x ee CHAPTER XXIII.

“THE BRIDAL CHAMBER : “ : : ~ % CHAPTER XXIV.

THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAINS - - z A :

CHAPTER XXY.

DOCTOR BARNES : - - - - =. =

Mik. BARNES OF NEW YORK.

BOOKs I.

THE DUEL AT AJACCIO.

CHAPTER IL WAITING.

“Yunus, I rather imagine this is the exact spot,” says Mr. Burton H. Barnes, of New York, to the venerable host of the very old and very dilapidated little inn that stands on the shores of the Gulf of Ajaccio, near where the Bastia road turns inland, and, following up the Gravona torrent, first through the orange and citron groves of the fertile Campoloro and then over hills eovered with the vine and olive, is lost in the chestnut woods that hide the lower slopes of the great Monte del Oro.

Nothing can be in more vivid and striking contrast than the man and his surroundings ; the light civilization of an exponent of New York fashion of the year 1882 stands face to face with the barbaric romance of the old Corsican scene and the mediseval picturesqueness of the native costume of the old innkeeper, who curiously asks, in his soft, southern patots, ignoring the Frerch in which Mr. Barnes has addressed Jiim, “The spot for what, signor ?”

“The spot where there is going to be a first-class duel this morning, as soon as there is light enough to kill.”

“To kill what ?”

“ach other! Don’t you know what a duel is?” Here Mr. Barnes gives a short dissertation on the code of honour, illustrating his French with vigorous pantomimic action.

“Ah! a kind of vendetta,” says the old man, brightening.

“Yes, a civilized vendetta. what that is, I’ve no doubt.”

“My father, the fisherman, fell in one,” says the Corsican, moodily; “he was drowned.”

“ And the man who killed your father ?” asks the American, with some interest.

“Was drowned also. Jam the son of my father. My father’s slayer was the last of

You know their accursed family, so now I sleep in peace. Would the gentleman lke breakfast?” and trade overcomes his romance.

“Yes; place a table for me, Mateo—I think that’s what you called yourself—out here on the portico. Give me a flask of your best chianti, some fruit, and something to eat, if you’ve gc anything not stuffed with chestnuts. Dll make myself comfortable till the time comes.”

“Koos?” triumphantly suggests the host.

“Yes. Eggs don’t taste of chestnuts.”

As Mateo goes in to attend to this order, Mr. Barnes mutters to himself, “ Always best to take things easy till it’s time to act ;” and sinking lazily upon the most comfortable stool he can find, gazes meditatively over the exquisite scene that the early morning light is just making distinctly beautiful.

The portico of the inn faces the bay, and is only separated from its torpid ripples by a few feet of shingle and rocks that run out into the blue water. This is now just brightening in the morning sun, rising over the white peaks of the Corsican mountains, that, as usual, in spring, are shrouded in mists. Far out to sea, the lateen sails of fishing boats look like seagulls’ wings; in the harbour a score or so of feluccas and speronares from Sardinia and Sicily are hardly moving under the lazy breeze, while the dark low hull of an English gun-boat, which has put into Ajaccio to purchase some supplies of poultry and fruit for her officers’ mess, is giving £ out from her short funnel a black cloud of | smoke that indicates she will soon be under »

weigh for Alexandria to assist at Arabi Pasha’s dewnfall.

Mr. Barnes looks gloomily at her as he says to himself, “ Wish that beggar would

10 gail before her time ; it would perhaps save me making a fool of myself.” Then rolling a cigarette, he turns, and looking inland up the Bastia road, continues: “No sign | of Marina yet. I sent the courier for her at ten o'clock last night. If Corsican horseflesh can do it, she should be here in time. ButCorsican horseflesh is at best only polo-pony horseflesh ; the roads are slow, and” (looking at his watch) “it is seven o’clock now. If I can’t stop these fellows making fools of themselves, and anything happens to him, Heaven pity her! it’s a hard world.”

With a sigh, Mr. Barnes goes off into a brown study, meditating what a fool he has been to come to Corsica, moufflon shooting, when he might just as well have been shooting some other wild animal on some other part of the earth’s surface.

Mr. Barnes is nota typical New Yorker. At first sight he is always suspected of being what is now contemptuously called a dude; but if his dress from its elaboration, almost to the point of affectation, night make an observer suppose him one, his bearing and manner would in a very short time prove that he was also a man, and aman who knew and understood both the world and himself pretty thoroughly. Mr. Barnes’ occupation in the twenty-eight years of his life has been killing time. Being blessed with an ample fortune, he had never earned his own living; though he once thought he ought to have a profession, and studied surgery till he discovered that the death rate of the world was ten a year to every practising physician ; whereupon, glad of the excuse, Mr. Barnes said he would let his ten men live, and refused to take out his diploma. Being compelled to kill time, he has mostly killed it by killing wild animals. A crack shot of the New York Rifle club has once or twice saved an international match by literally having no nerves at the critical moment when it was absolutely necessary to shoot a bull’s eye to win ; consequently, before dangerous game, especially tigers, Mr. Barnes is very deadly.

Not averse to the chase in any form, he would gladly have hunted in the preserves of Belgravia and Fifth Avenue, for he had the entrée to both English and American society, but he despised a long flirtation with its imperceptible advances, and calculated manceuvres, which he stigmatised as “Snaring canary birds, and not true sport.”

Too languid to dance in a ball-room, he i}

MP. RAPIwSe—<F 9. Wd ae SOE 62 would climb the Rocky Mountains to kill a big-horn; consequently, when over @ game of Baccarat at a Parisian club, a passing acquaintance, Count Musso Danella, a Corsican, invited him to visit his estates on the island for the purpose of killing moufiion, Mr. Barnes accepted, and within the three weeks preceding the day we meet him, had shot all the moufilon he desired, travelled generally over the island, but had missed seeing what he was most curious about—a vendetta in actual progress, and was at Ajaccio, en route for France, when he became engaged in the morning adventure that now occupies him, not on his own account, but for the sake of a young lady he had met in the interior of the island. The next estate to that of his host in the fair valley of the Gravona, below the far spreading chestnut and beech woods of Bocognano, was one belonging to a family in whose veins flows the blood most honoured and most loved in all Corsica, that of the old-time patriot and liberator, Pasquale Paoli, and the young lady was one of the last of that ancient name. Count Musso Danella was the guardian of both the girl and her brother,—their father having died while they were children,—and had invited Barnes to visit, with him, his young ward who had just returned from an Italian boarding school, in order to meet her brother, a young naval officer in the service of the French Republic, expected home from a three years’ cruise. “She will return to school no more; they write they will not have her back,” says the Count as they ride up the avenue of olive trees, toward the low Corsican house.

“Indeed! Why?” asks Barnes.

“Per Bacco! she is too Corsican for them ; she loves liberty too well. She ran away from school to hear Gerster sing in Florence one night, and threatened her painting master with an unknown vengeance if he dared to desecrate with daubs from his no-school modern Italian brush, a painting she had just finished. The Italian sent her picture unaltered to me with his complaint ; I sent Marina’s picture to the |

Salon, and when it received an honourable mention, I threw the Italian’s complaint into the fire!”

“ A picture from a girl receive mention at the Paris Salon!” Mr. Barnes gasps in.

unbelief.

“] think it was as much the subject as the treatment secured its success ; for

| with true girlish vanity she had painted ~

MR. BARNES OF NEW YORK.

herself,” laughs the Count, as they enter the house. The next instant Barnes sees _ the original, and then only wonders that the copy, if halfa likeness, did not gain the gold medal of the year.

As she rises to receive them, the girl drapes her modern Parisian dress about her, like some old Grecian robe, and outlines a form perfect as her face, which is of the most bewildering, dazzling, Southern beauty, animated by a soul, that, shining through it with changing piquancy of expression, makes it indescribable. To love her would have been to love, perhaps, within the hour a Juliet and Madonna; and, perchance, in one dread moment of her life, a Lady Macbeth—all strangely beautiful and each Marina Paoli.

Barnes, whose descriptive adjectives are limited, called her “a stunner,” and was right as regards his own sensations, for she simply appalled him, not perhaps when he first saw her—but afterwards.

As she comes toward them with a smile of welcome, the Count presuming on his guardianship is about to kiss her lips ;— the smile changes to a flash of hauteur as she coldly says: “I’ve grown older now— my hand, please.”

While the man of the world with his forty years of Parisian life that cost him fifty, smiling behind his white teeth bends over her fingers, Barnes suddenly thinks that Musso loves her ; and that the young girl with her sex’s instinct has placed a rampart between his passion and herself.

As Mr. Barnes is introduced, her smile is back again; she exclaims, “An American! a freeman! you can kiss my hand also !” .

“ You like republicans ?”

“1 hate tyrants and despise slaves. I should only bow toa Russian or a Turk, but an American—it is different !”

“Tm glad ’'m an American,” says Mr. Barnes, kissing her hand: and that kiss gave him interest enough in her life to make him turn out of his way, on the day we first see him, to do her a service.

They are friends at once. The girl sings him a strain or two from an opera, accompanying herself on a mandolin. Then, from Italian music, she turns to that of her own island,and chants some old native ballads which are all lamenti relating to the vendctta—for in Corsica there are no other local songs. This leads to her explaining to Mr. Barnes what the vendetta really is ; that it is considered a sacred duty to avenge one of the family who falls by another's hand; that the Rimbecco is a reproach which is spoken or sung to him who forgets the wrongs of kindred, and a Corsican who did not listen to it would be for ever despised. With this she chants a Rimbecco with a wild pathos that shows, though educated in the civilization of the continent, Marina Paoli is still in spirit a Corsican.

With some curiosity he asks her whether there has ever been a vendetta in her family.

‘Not tor three generations,” says the girl, “but it always comes in the third, and that is ours, ‘There are only three of us—old Tomasso, who serves me so faithfully and who is my foster-father and would avenge my wrongs as his own; myself, and Antonio, my brother,” (her eyes take an expectant look), “the only one of my blood I have to love, whose letter I shall soon receive telling me when I shall place my kiss upon him. Ah! I He horses’ hoofs! Mia Madre! if it is

Her face brightens with a great joy and she darts out into the portico. Atter a pause the Count says: “ Would you like to see the picture of the Parisian Salon ?”

He draws aside a curtain, disclosing a canvas that as Barnes throws the lamplight on it, develops into a portrait of Marina in the costume of a Corsican peasant with its brilliantly coloured mandile and short skirt, that give to her graceful figure even additional charms ; but her face has a dreamy expression, as if her soul was far away from her body, and her eyes look intensely strained, seeking someone that comes not. The attitude is one of expectant passion. Underneath is written, “WAITING !”

“ Ah, waiting for her lover! stand !” laughs Barnes,

“No! Waiting for her brother—he is the only being Marina loves. The two children grew up, as it were, in each other’s arms ; until three years ago, their lives were one-—and now she awaits his coming like an expectant bride. ‘There is no room in her heart for any other love !” remarked Musso moodily.

The words have hardly left him when

I under-

Marina enters like one inspired. “See,” she cries, “his letter! my Antonio’s letter!” and she kisses it. ‘ He will be in

Corsica to-morrow, and the next day,” (a sigh of longing) “with me! I have sent old Tomasso to light fires of good omen on the hills, so that our shepherds on the higher ranges of del Oro may know their master is returning, and come to give him welcome. I shall wear that dress when next I see him,” she points to the picture. ‘He loved me best as one of his own people !”

‘“We had better go,” whispers Danella to our American. ‘She willnow think only of her brother.”

As they take their leave, the Count asks for the bunch of white laurel flowers the girl wears. But she plucks them from her bosom and thrusts them into the hands of the astonished Barnes. Danella scowls threateningly at the young man. Marina noticing, says quickly with a laugh, ‘‘ Do not be jealous; Mr. Barnes will take them for me to Ajaccio, and if he sees my brother, give Antonio the flowers of his native land and tell him that Marina, who is waiting, sent them, and will rest no more until he gives them back to her. Understand you are not even to smell them; their perfume is all for my brother.”

As the two men ride away, she stands looking after them, their eyes beaming with expectation. Backed by the fire-light that streams from the open panes past the iron gratings that defend all windows in this unquiet country, she forms a picture of joy and love that is almost medieval in its intensity.

“By George! They don’t manufacture such girls in Fifth Avenue!” says Mr. Barnes.

“No! Civilization would stunt the growth of such a heart. Marina has the two great native passions—love of country and love of family ; but there are none like her, not even in Corsica. While her brother lives she will love no other man.”

“But if she should?” suggests laughingly the American.

‘Not while I live!” cries the Corsican with a muttered oath and a sudden sinister contraction of his face that tells Barnes his secret. “ But you take the road to Ajaccio, and it leaves mine here.” On which the two men part with many a kindly farewell, for, though Barnes despises a man who cannot keep his temper, and the Count has the passions of the lower regions, they have been good comrades for their three weeks’ shooting, and have bagged much game; which makes all sportsmen feel kindly to one another.

As Barnes rides down the beautiful valley that is watered by the white rapids of the Gravona rushing towards the sea, he smells the perfume of the laurel flowers and sees the fires of welcome lighted upon the hills, and knows that any kindness done to the brother will make the sister his friend ; and, though his common sense forbids him to love a volcano, he would do much to gain her esteem.

The next evening he is in Ajaccio ; and, thoughtful of his message to Antonio, lounges into the local Club, which with the traditional hospitality of all Corsica is open to foreigners, thinking to find him.

There are but few visitors at that most quiet of all quiet clubs, The Curcle of Ajaccio, and Barnes at first thinks there are none; but soon angry voices come to him from the next room, followed by a couple of good round home-made Anglo- Saxon oaths that no foreigner could imitate.

Glancing in, he sees two French officers, and an English one who evidently belongs to some British man-of-war in the harbour, as he wears the naval uniform of that country. ¥

The matter of their dispute is the Egyptian question, which up to this time makes very bad blood between the two countries ; and, in 1882, before the bombardment of Alexandria, was the cause of even more decided and bitter feeling than now. ‘The controversy has been brought about by an extremely clever cartoon in the London Punch, that is lying on the table of the club. This picture represents a gigantic palm tree laden with Egyptian cocoanuts, that France, in the costume of a French officer, is shaking so that the fruit will fall right into the open and capacious jaws of the British lion, who is reclining lazily beneath its branches.

As Mr. Barnes looks in, the climax is reached by the French officer calling the Englishman a liar, and the next instant getting knocked down for his trouble.

The Frenchman gathers himself together, which takes some little time, as the blow was straight from the shoulder, rises, and is about to spring at his opponent, when his comrade stops him, saying “ Not now!”

The assaulted man restrains himself, bows and presents his card, in the eagerness of the moment drawing two from his case. The Englishman takes one, leaving the other on the table, and says, “ You must excuse me not giving my card in return.”

‘‘A brave man!” thinks Barnes. “ He has courage enough to refuse a duel.”

“ And you are an English officer!” says the Frenchman, with a sneer.

“And it is because I am an English

Mk. BARNES OF NEW YORK.

officer that I refuse. To send or accept a challenge is against the orders of the British Admiralty.”

** Not quite so brave as I thought him ; he fears the British Admiralty,” mutters Barnes.

“Ah! you dare not!” says the Frenchman. “ You are only fit to fight Egyptians.”

“‘T am very well able to murder you if you wish it,” replies the Englishman, “and if you put it on the ground of courage, [ll face both you and a court-martial together.”

A meeting isarranged for the next morning at eight sharp, at the little inn by the shore, called Jl Pescatore, for the Englishman’s ship sails at nine. Then the men leave the club, the French officer remarking, “ Demain! d la mort!”

This affair would not have interested Mr. Barnes greatly ; he had once looked on a duel between cow-boys in Texas, and had seen enough blood shed at that meeting between those vagabonds of the wilderness to make him wish never to see another ;

but, happening a few minutes afterward to stroll into the room where the dispute had taken place, he picked up the card from the table. After one hasty glance at it, and then another to be absolutely sure, he went hurriedly out into the street, and, ten minutes after, a Corsican boy, instructed to ride for his life, was spurring wildly into the darkness up the Bastia road with a dispatch for Musso Danella.

The next morning Mr. Barnes hurried to the inn of Il Pescatore for the sake of the girl he had seen waiting so expectantly the coming of her brother; for the card he had picked up in the Ajaccio Club was,

M, Antonio Paoli,

Sous Lieutenant,

Marine Francais

CHAPTER II.

COMING.

Mr. Barnes divides his time on the little balcony of the inn where we first meet him, between alternately gazing impatiently up the Bastia road for the dust of moving horses, glancing at his watch and looking at the English gun-boat in hopes she will sail; all the time industriously smoking cigarettes. He is interrupted while rolling the third of these little soothers of human nature, by the return of Mateo with his breakfast.

“ Put it on that table there.”

“Signor, this is the shady side of the balcony,” says the innkeeper.

“But the other has the view! That’s the ticket! Now those fellows can’t come here and kill each other, by any chance, without my getting my eye on them! That’s better chiants than 1 thought you had in the island.” Saying this, Mr. Barnes proceeds to make his breakfast with a very tolerable appetite.

Mateo anxiously waits near him, and at last asks eagerly, “Do you think these men who are to kill each other will come soon }”

“Ves; but what does that matter to you?”

“They might want some breakfast also. They might be hungry before they kill each other.”

“ Ah! that’s what interests you,” laughs Mr. Barnes. ‘ You only look at the duello from a gastronomical and business standpoint—you’ve never seen one ?”

“No. We kill in Corsica, but not in that way. Have you enjoyed a duel before, Signor?” remarks Mateo, removing the emptied egg-shells from before his guest and arranging the fruit.

“Yes, once; between cow-boysin Texas. They killed each other in ten seconds. It will suit me very well never to view another.”

“T should have liked to have seen it ; it must have been grand!” mumbles the old man.

But the recollection of the most terrible sight of his life makes Mr. Barnes anxious about his present episode. He rises and again looks up the road coming from the interior—not even a dust cloud—not a sign of her.

“Tf Marina comes, her brother can’t fight if he has any feeling for her. I couldn't, with such a sister as that. Td take no chances of leaving her alone in the world,” he half mutters.

Rolling another cigarette, he is about to sit down again, when, as he turns toward the water, he sees a boat rowed by acouple of stout native fishermen rapidly round one of the points of rocks that outline the little bay. A moment after, her bow, driven by a vigorous stroke or two, is well up on the shelving beach. In her stern sits the English officer of the night before, accompanied by another, who is doubtless his second.

“The beggars are ahead of her,” Mr. Barnes mutters. ‘“T’ll have to do what I can myself, Anyhow, it’s best to see the Englishman first.”

As the two officers land, and look along the beach, and then up at the inn, apparently expecting to see their antagonist, a wild thought flashes through Barnes’ brain: Marina’s brother is not yet here—why not present himself as the brother’s representative, offer an apology from him to the Englishman, and send him back to his ship, which has already hoisted in her boats, and is evidently about to leave the harbour. A. grim smile passes across his face at this novel idea, but, even as he glances about to see that the Corsican is not yet near enough to prevent his plan succeeding, he rejects it as a trick unworthy of him, feeling certain that if Marina ever discovered he had juggled with what she would consider her brother’s honour, she would doubtless hate him for such impertinent interference.

The next instant he has taken his line, and impatiently tossing away his halfsmoked cigarette, he calls out, “I say, you chaps down there! Come up here and have some breakfast with me! I haven’t

MR. BARNES OF NEW YORK.

seen an English face for a month! Pm Parnes, of New York !”

The two British officers start in astonishment at the familiarity of his address, and one of them, the principal of the affair, after a short pause, says, taking off his cap, and bowing in almost mock politeness, “Much obliged for your kind invitation, but we are not hungry, and are here on an affair of business, Mister Barnes, of New Yorks?

The other, @ more morose creature, mutters to himself ‘Curse the infernal impudence of Barnes, of New York!” during this, taking out of the boat a couple of ominous-looking packages.

“They think I’m a fool,” cogitates Barnes, of New York, “ and that’s half the negotiation. An acknowledged idiot can generally drive a better bargain than a wise man; people are not on their guard against his wislom. That makes a great deal of what is commonly called ‘ Fool’s hanksie

Mr. Barnes, of New York, has the peculiar faculty of always leaving as a first impression the fact that he is an utter imbecile, though on further acquaintance most people think they had made a mistake.

A moment after, he shouts in reply, ‘That's the business I want to see you about ! Come up and have a glass of wine with me in the shade. That’/ll be better than my going down toyou. Thatshingle below, now the sun is on it, would roast a shrimp.”

The two officers hold an undertone consultation, and then ascend the halfdecayed little wooden stairway that leads from the shore to the inn. They are both young men. One, the principal in the affair, is probably about thirty years of age, and wears the full-dress uniform of a lieutenant in Her Majesty’s navy: the other, who is but little over twenty, that of a midshipman in the same service. They are both generally very much the same sort of - fellows who fought under Nelson, and are described by Captain Marryat, with the addition of a century’s advance in refinement. The manof the night before is fair, reasonably tall, and apparently amiable ; the other, darker, shorter, and more inclined to be punctiliously blood-thirsty, as seconds in affairs of honour generally are. He has rather a bull-dog countenance, and, with the recklessness of youth, is apparently determined his principal shall smell powder,

Arrived on the little. balcony, the latter advances with quarter-deck decision towards Mr. Barnes, who has taken another fruitless glance up the Bastia road, and speaks to the point.

“You say you want to see us on this affair—what affair ?”

“ His affair of honour—he’s come here to fight, hasn’t he?” replies the American, indicating the principal by his glance.

“With whom?” inquires the second, diplomatically.

“With Monsieur Paoli, sous lieutenant in the French navy!” says Mr. Barnes,

* Ah! you came then as a friend of the Frenchman ?”

“No! Iam here on my own hook !”

“Then by what right——?” The

Englishman is drawing himself up haughtily.

“Tam a friend of his sister!” interrupts the American.

“ His sister!” ejaculates the second in surprise. The Englishmen look at each - other, and the principal turns away with a soft look in his eyes,

His second does not regard the matter in the same light, as he sneers, “ Ah, breakers ahead! I guess you're his sister’s lover, and perhaps are spoons enough on the sister to take the sister's brother’s place !”

“TJ am not spoons on the sister, but if 1 did take his sister’s brother’s place in front of you, sir, you would not like it. Iam Barnes, of New York!” The American finds it difficult to keep his temper.

This peculiar repetition of ‘ Barnes, of New York,’ evidently sets his hearer to thinking, for he suddenly exclaims, “ Not Barnes, of New York, the celebrated rifle shot, who won the International off-hand cup, and whose shooting with the pistol in Paris astonished the Frencheys so much, the Times said ?”