My Friend Prospero

by Henry Harland

  VI

  Meanwhile he plainly knew a tremendous lot about Italian art. LadyBlanchemain herself knew a good deal, and could recognize a pundit. Heillumined their progress by a running fire of exposition and commentary,learned and discerning, to which she encouragingly listened, and, asoccasion required, amiably responded. But Boltraffios, BernardinoLuinis, even a putative Giorgione, could not divert her mind from itshuman problem. What was he doing at Castel Sant' Alessina, the property,according to her guide-book, of an Austrian prince? What was his statushere, apparently (bar servants) in solitary occupation? Was he itstenant? He couldn't, surely, this well-dressed, high-bred, cultivatedyoung compatriot, he couldn't be a mere employe, a steward or curator?No: probably a tenant. Antecedently indeed it might seem unlikely that ayoung Englishman should become the tenant of an establishment so hugeand so sequestered; but was it conceivable that this particular youngEnglishman should be a mere employe? And was there any otheralternative? She hearkened for a word, a note, that might throw light;but of such notes, such words, a young man's conversation, in thecircumstances, would perhaps naturally yield a meagre crop.

  "You mustn't let me tire you," he said presently, as one who hadforgotten and suddenly remembered that looking at pictures is exhaustingwork. "Won't you sit here and rest a little?"

  They were in a smaller room than any they had previously traversed, anoctagonal room, which a single lofty window filled with sunshine.

  "Oh, thank you," said Lady Blanchemain, and seated herself on thecircular divan in the centre of the polished terrazza floor. She wasn'treally tired in the least, the indefatigable old sight-seer; but arespite from picture-gazing would enable her to turn the talk. She putup her mother-of-pearl lorgnon, and glanced round the walls; then,lowering it, she frankly raised her eyes, full of curiosity andkindness, to her companion's.

  "It's a surprise, and a delightful one," she remarked, "having pushed sofar afield in a foreign land, to be met by the good offices of afellow-countryman--it's so nice of you to be English."

  And her eyes softly changed, their curiosity being veiled by a kind ofhumorous content.

  The young man's face, from its altitude of six-feet-something, beamedresponsively down upon her.

  "Oh," he laughed, "you mustn't give me too much credit. To be Englishnowadays is so ingloriously easy--since foreign lands have become merelythe wider suburbs of London."

  Lady Blanchemain's eyes lighted approvingly. Afterwards she looked halfserious.

  "True," she discriminated, "London has spread pretty well over the wholeof Europe; but England, thanks be to goodness, still remains mercifullysmall."

  "Yes," agreed the young man, though with a lilt of dubiety, and a frownof excogitation, as if he weren't sure that he had quite caught herdrift.

  "The mercy of it is," she smilingly pointed out, "that English folk,decent ones, have no need to fight shy of each other when they meet asstrangers. We all know more or less about each other by hearsay, orabout each other's people; and we're all pretty sure to have some commonacquaintances. The smallness of England makes for sociability andconfidence."

  "It ought to, one would think," the young man admitted. "But does it, infact? It had somehow got stuck in my head that English folk, meeting asstrangers, were rather apt to glare. We're most of us in such a funk,you see, lest, if we treat a stranger with civility, he should turn outnot to be a duke."

  "Oh," cried Lady Blanchemain, with merriment, "you forget that I said_decent_. I meant, of course, folk who _are_ dukes. We're all dukes--orbagmen."

  The young man chuckled; but in a minute he pulled a long face, and madebig, ominous eyes.

  "I feel I ought to warn you," he said in a portentous voice, "that someof us are mere marquises--of the house of Carabas."

  Lady Blanchemain, her whole expansive person, simmered with enjoyment.

  "Bless you," she cried, "those are the ducalest, for marquises--of thehouse of Carabas--are men of dash and spirit, born to bear everythingbefore them, and to marry the King's daughter."

  With that, she had a moment of abstraction. Again, her eyeglass up, sheglanced round the walls--hung, in this octagonal room, with dim-colouredportraits of women, all in wonderful toilets, with wonderful hair andhead-gear, all wonderfully young and pleased with things, and all fourcenturies dead. They caused her a little feeling of uneasiness, theywere so dead and silent, and yet somehow, in their fixed postures, withtheir unblinking eyes, their unvarying smiles, so--as it seemed toher--so watchful, so intent; and it was a relief to turn from them tothe window, to the picture framed by the window of warm, breathing,heedless nature. But all the while, in her interior mind, she was busywith the man before her. "He looks," she considered, "tall as he is, andwith his radiant blondeur--with the gold in his hair and beard, and thesea-blue in his eyes--he looks like a hero out of some old Norse saga.He looks like-what's his name?--like Odin. I must really compel him toexplain himself."

  It very well may be, meantime, that he was reciprocally busy with her,taking her in, admiring her, this big, jolly, comely, high-mannered oldwoman, all in soft silks and drooping laces, who had driven into hissolitude from Heaven knew where, and was quite unquestionably Someone,Heaven knew who.

  She had a moment of abstraction; but now, emerging from it, she used hereyeglass as a pointer, and indicatively swept the circle of paintedeavesdroppers.

  "They make one feel like their grandmother, their youth is so flagrant,"she sighed, "these grandmothers of the Quattrocento. Ah, well, we canonly be old once, and we should take advantage of the privileges of agewhile we have 'em. Old people, I am thankful to say, are allowed,amongst other things, to be inquisitive. I'm brazenly so. Now, if one ofour common acquaintances were at hand--for with England still mercifullysmall, we're sure to possess a dozen, you and I--what do you think isthe question I should ask him?--I should ask him," she avowed, with apretty effect of hesitation, and a smile that went as an advance-guardto disarm resentment, "to tell me who you are, and all about you--and tointroduce you to me."

  "Oh," cried the young man, laughing. He laughed for a second or two. Inthe end, pleasantly, with a bow, "My name," he said, "if you canpossibly care to know, is Blanchemain."

  His visitor caught her breath. She sat up straight, and gazed hard athim.

  "Blanchemain?" she gasped.