My Friend Prospero
Page 17
IV
There was a sound of wheels on gravel, of horses' hoofs on stone, andLady Blanchemain's great high-swung barouche, rolling superbly forthfrom the avenue, drew up before the Castle, Lady Blanchemainherself, big and soft and sumptuous in silks and laces, under amuch-befurbelowed, much-befringed, lavender-hued silk sunshade,occupying the seat of honour. John hastened across the garden, hat inhand, to welcome her.
"Jump in," she commanded, with a smile, and an imperious sweep of thearm. "I have come to take you for a drive."
The footman (proud man) held open the door, and John jumped in. But justas the footman (with an air) had closed the door behind him, and beforethe coachman had touched up his horses, there came a rhythm of runningfootsteps, and the voice of Annunziata called, insistently, "Prospero!Prospero!" Then, all out of breath, her pale cheeks pink, her curls indisarray, Annunziata arrived beside the carriage, and, no wise abashedby that magnificent equipage, nor by the magnificent old lady throningin it, (no wise abashed, but, from the roundness of her eyes, a gooddeal surprised and vastly curious), she explained, gasping, "Atelegram," and held up to John a straw-coloured envelope.
"Thank you," said he, taking it, and waving a friendly hand. "But youshould not run so fast," he admonished her, with concern.
Whereupon the carriage drove off, Annunziata standing and watching,always round-eyed, till it was out of sight.
"What an interesting-looking child!" said Lady Blanchemain.
"Yes," said John. "I should have liked to introduce her to you."
"Who is she?" asked the lady.
"She's the private detective I told you of. She's my affinity. She's theyoung limb o' mischief for whom I ravaged your stores of marchpane.She's the niece of the parroco."
"Hum!" said Lady Blanchemain. "Why does she call you--what wasit?--Prospero?"
"She's an optimist. She's a bird of good omen," answered John. "She'ssatisfied herself, by consulting an oracle, that Fortune has favours upher sleeve for me. She encouragingly anticipates them by calling meProspero before the fact."
Lady Blanchemain softly laughed. "That's very nice of her, and verywise. Aren't you going to read your telegram?"
"I didn't know whether you'd permit," said John.
"Oh pray," said she, with a gesture.
The carriage by this time had left the garden, and the coachman hadturned his horses' heads northwards, away from the lake, towards theAlps, where their snowy summits, attenuated by the sun and the distanceand the blue air, looked like vapours rising into the sky.
John tore open his envelope, read, frowned, and uttered a half-stifledejaculation,--something that sounded rather like "I say!" and vaguelylike "By Jove!"
"No bad news, I hope?" inquired the lady, sympathetic, and trying tospeak as if she didn't know what curiosity meant.
"Excellent news, on the contrary," said John, "but a bolt from theblue." And he offered her the paper.
"Am on my way to Rome," she read aloud. "Could I come to you for a day?Winthorpe, Hotel Cavour, Milan."--"Winthorpe?" She pursed her lips, asone tasting something. "I don't know the name. Who is he? What's hisCounty?" she demanded,--she, who carried the County Families in herhead.
John chuckled. "He hasn't got a County--he's only an American," he said,pronouncing that genial British formula with intention.
"Oh," sighed Lady Blanchemain, her expectations dashed; and drawing inher skirts, she sank a little deeper into her corner.
"He hasn't got a County," repeated John. "But he's far and away thegreatest swell I know."
"A swell? An American?" Lady Blanchemain pressed down her lips, and gavea movement to her shoulders.
"An aristocrat, a patrician," said John.
"Fudge!" said Lady Blanchemain. "Americans and Australians--they'reanything you like, but they're never that."
John laughed. "I adore," he said, "our light and airy British way oftarring Americans and Australians with the same brush,--the descendantsof transported convicts and the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers!"
"Is your Winthorpe man a descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers?" asked LadyBlanchemain, dryly.
"Indeed he is," said John. "He's descended from ten separate individualswho made the first voyage in the _Mayflower_. And he holds, by-the-by,intact, the lands that were ceded to his family by the Indians the yearafter. That ought to recommend him to your Ladyship,--an unbroken tenureof nearly three hundred years."
"Old acres," her ladyship admitted, cautiously, "always make forrespectability."
"Besides," John carelessly threw out, "he's a baronet."
Lady Blanchemain sat up. "A baronet?" she said. "An American?"
"Alas, yes," said John, "a mere American. And one of the earliestcreations,--by James the First, no less. His patent dates from 1612. Buthe doesn't use the title. He regards it, he pretends, as merged in ahigher dignity."
"What higher dignity?" asked the lady, frowning.
"That of an American citizen, he says," chuckled John.
"Brrr!" she breathed, impatient.
"And moreover," John gaily continued, "besides being descended from thePilgrim Fathers, he's descended in other lines from half the peerage ofSeventeenth Century England. And to top up with, if you please, he'sdescended from Alfred the Great. He's only an American, but he can showa clear descent bang down from Alfred the Great! I think the mostexquisite, the most subtle and delicate pleasure I have ever experiencedhas been to see English people, people of yesterday, cheerfullypatronizing him."
"You've enlarged my sphere of knowledge," said Lady Blanchemain, grimly."I had never known that there was blood in America. Does this prodigiouspersonage talk through his nose?"
"Worse luck, no," said John. "I wish he did--a little--just enough tosmack of his soil, to possess local colour. No, he talks for all theworld like you or me,--which exposes him to compliments in England. 'AnAmerican? Really?' our tactful people cry, when he avows his nationality'Upon my word, I should never have suspected it.'"
"I suppose, with all the rest, he's rich?" asked Lady Blanchemain.
"Immensely," assented John. "Speaking of Fortune and her favours, she'swithheld none from him."
"Then he's good-looking, too?"
"He looks like a Man," said John.
"Hum!" said Lady Blanchemain, moving. "If _I_ had received a wire from acreature of such proportions, I've a feeling I'd answer it."
"I've a very similar feeling myself," laughed John. "When we turn back,if you think your coachman can be persuaded to stop at the telegraphoffice in the village, I'll give my feeling effect."
"I think we might turn back now," said Lady Blanchemain. "It's gettingrather gloomy here." She looked round, with a little shudder, and thengave the necessary order. The valley had narrowed to what was scarcelymore than a defile between two dark and rugged hillsides,--pine-covered hillsides that shut out the sun, smiting the air withchill and shadow, and turning the Rampio, whose brawl seemed somehow toincrease the chill, turning the sparkling, sportive Rampio to the colourof slate. "It puts one in mind of brigands," she said, with anotherlittle shudder. But though the air was chilly, it was wonderfully,keenly fragrant with the incense of the pines.
"Well," she asked, when they were facing homewards, "and your woman?What of her?"
"Nothing," said John. "Or, anyhow, very little." (It would be extremelypleasant, he felt suddenly, to talk of her; but at the same time he feltan extreme reluctance to let his pleasure be seen.)
"But your private detective?" said Lady Blanchemain. "Weren't herinvestigations fruitful?"
"Not very," said he. "She learnt little beyond her name and age."
"And what _is_ her name?" asked the lady.
"Her name is Maria Dolores," answered John, (and he experienced a secretjoy, strange to him, in pronouncing it).
"Maria Dolores?" said Lady Blanchemain, (and he experienced a secret joyin hearing it). "Maria Dolores--what?"
"My detective didn't discover her Pagan name," said John.
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nbsp; "So that you are still in doubt whether she's the daughter of a miller?"Lady Blanchemain raised her eyebrows.
"Oh, no: I think she's a miller's daughter safely enough," said he. "Butshe's an elaborately chiselled and highly polished one. Her voice islike ivory and white velvet; and to hear her speak English is arevelation of the hidden beauties of that language."
"Hum!" said Lady Blanchemain, eyeing him. "So you've advanced to thepoint of talking with her?"
"Well," answered John, weighing his words, "I don't know whether I canquite say that. But accident threw us together for a minute or two thisafternoon, and we could scarcely do less, in civility, than exchange thetime of day."
"And are you in love with her?" asked Lady Blanchemain.
"I wonder," said he. "What do _you_ think? Is it possible for a man tobe in love with a woman he's seen only half a dozen times all told, andspoken with never longer than a minute or two at a stretch?"
"_Was_ it only a minute or two--_really_?" asked Lady Blanchemain,wooing his confidence with a glance.
"No," said John. "It was probably ten minutes, possibly fifteen. Butthey passed so quickly, it's really nearer the truth to describe them asone or two."
Lady Blanchemain shifted her sunshade, and screwed herself half round,so as to face him, her soft old eyes full of smiling scrutiny andsuspicion.
"I never can tell whether or not you're serious," she complained. "Ifyou _are_ serious,--well, _a quand le mariage_?"
"The marriage?" cried John. "How could I marry her? Such a thing's outof all question.
"Why?" asked she.
"A miller's daughter!" said John. "Would you have me marry the daughterof a miller?"
"You said yourself yesterday--" the lady reminded him.
"Ah, yes," said he. "But night brings counsel."
"If she's well educated," said Lady Blanchemain, "if she's well-bred,what does it matter about her father? Though a nobody in Austria, wherenothing counts but quarterings, he's probably what we'd call a gentlemanin England. Suppose he's a barrister? Or the editor of a newspaper?Or--"
She paused, thoughtful-eyed, to think of respectable professions. Atlast she gave up the effort.
"Well, anything decent," she concluded, "so long as he had plenty ofmoney."
"Ah," said John, sadly, and with perhaps mock humility. "If he hadplenty of money, he'd never consent to his daughter marrying a son ofpoverty like me."
"Pooh! For a title?" cried Lady Blanchemain. "Besides, you haveprospects. Isn't your name Prospero?"
"I have precious little faith in oracles," said John.
"I advise you to have more," said Lady Blanchemain, with a smile thatseemed occult.
And now her carriage entered the village, and she put him down at thetelegraph office.
"Don't wait," said John. "The walk from here to the Castle is nothing,and it would take you out of your way."
"Well, good-bye, then," said she. "And cultivate more faith inoracles--when they're auspicious."
Alone, she drew from some recondite fold of her many draperies a letter,an unsealed letter, which she opened, spread out, and proceeded to read.It was a long letter in her ladyship's own handsome, high-bred,old-fashioned handwriting; and it was addressed to Messrs. Farrow,Bernscot, and Tisdale, Solicitors, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London. Sheread it twice through, and at last (with a smile that seemed occult)restored it to its envelope. "Stop at the Post Office," she said to hercoachman, as they entered Roccadoro; and to her footman, giving him theletter, "Have that registered, please."
Annunziata lay in wait for John in the garden. She ran up, and seizedhim by the arm. Then, skipping beside him, as he walked on, "Who wasshe? Where did she come from? Where did she take you? Whom was thetelegram from?" she demanded in a breath, nestling her curls against hiscoat-sleeve.
"_Piano, piano_," remonstrated John. "One question at a time. Now, beginagain."
"Whom was the telegram from?" she obeyed, beginning at the end.
"Ah," said he, "the telegram was from _my_ friend Prospero. He's cominghere to-morrow. We must ask your uncle whether he can give him a bed."
"And the old lady?" pursued Annunziata. "Who was she?"
"The old lady was my fairy godmother," said John, building better thanhe knew.
PART FOURTH