My Friend Prospero

by Henry Harland

  III

  "Rain before seven, clear before eleven," is as true, or as untrue, inLombardy as it is in other parts of the world. The rain had held up, andnow, in that spirited phrase of Corvo's, "here came my lord the Sun,"splendidly putting the clouds to flight, or chaining them, transfigured,to his chariot-wheels; clothing the high snow-peaks in a roseate glory,(that seemed somehow, I don't know why, to accent their solitude andtheir remoteness); flooding the valley with ethereal amber; turning theswollen Rampio to a river of fire while the nearer hillsides, the olivewoods, the trees in the Castle garden, glistened with a million millioncrystals, and the petals of the flowers were crystal-tipped; while thebreath of the earth rose in long streamers of luminous incense, and thesky gleamed with every tender, every brilliant, tint of blue, from theblue of pale forgetmenots to the blue of larkspur.

  John, contemplating this spectacle, (and thinking of Maria Dolores?revolving still her cryptic valediction?), all at once, as his eyerested on the shimmer at the valley's end which he knew to be the lake,lifted up his hand and clapped his brow. "By Jove," he muttered, "if Iwasn't within an ace of clean forgetting!" The sight of the lake hadfortunately put him in mind that he was engaged to-day to lunch withLady Blanchemain at Roccadoro.

  He found her ladyship, in a frock all concentric whirls of crisp whiteruffles, vigorously wielding a fan, and complaining of the heat.(Indeed, as Annunziata had predicted, it had grown markedly warmer.) "Ishall fly away, if this continues; I shall fly straight to town, and setmy house in order for the season. When do _you_ come?" she asked,smiling on him from her benign old eyes.

  "I don't come," answered John. "I rather like town in autumn and winter,when it's too dark to see its ugliness, but save me from it in the clearlight of summer."

  "Fudge," said Lady Blanchemain. "London's the most beautiful capital inEurope--it's grandiose. And it's the only place where there are anypeople.

  "Yes," said John, "but, as at Nice and Homburg, too many of them areEnglish. And there's a liberal scattering, I've heard, of Jews?"

  "Oh, Jews are all right--when they aren't Jewy," said Lady Blanchemain,with magnanimity. "I know some very nice ones. I was rather hoping youwould be a feature of my Sunday afternoons."

  "I'm not a society man," said John. "I've no aptitude myself forpatronizing or toadying, and I don't particularly enjoy being patronizedor toadied to."

  "Is that the beginning and end of social life in England?" LadyBlanchemain inquired, delicately sarcastic.

  "As I have seen it, yes," asseverated John. "The beginning, end, andmiddle of social life in England, as in Crim-Tartary, is worship of thelongest pigtail,--a fetichism sometimes grosser, sometimes subtler,sometimes deliberate, often unconscious and instinctive. Every one youmeet is aware that his pigtail is either longer or shorter than yours,and accordingly, more or less subtly, grossly, unconsciously ordeliberately, swaggers or bends the knee. It's a state of things I'vetried in vain to find diverting."

  "It's a state of things you'll find prevailing pretty well in all placeswhere the human species breeds," said Lady Blanchemain. "The onlydifference will be a question of what constitutes the pigtail. And areyou, then, remaining at Sant' Alessina?"

  "For the present," answered John.

  "Until--?" she questioned.

  "Oh, well, until she sends me away, or leaves herself," said he, "and somy fool's paradise achieves its inevitable end."

  Lady Blanchemain laughed--a long, quiet laugh of amused contentment.

  "Come in to luncheon," she said, putting her soft white hand upon hisarm, "and tell me all about it." And when they were established at hertable, a round table, gay with flowers, in a window at the far end ofthe cool, terazza-paved, stucco-columned dining-room of the HotelVictoria, "Why do you call it a fool's paradise?" she asked.

  "Well, you see, I'm in love," said he.

  "You really are?" she doubted, with sprightliness, looking gleeful.

  "All too really," he assured her, in a sinking voice.

  "What an old witch I was!" mused she, with satisfaction. "Accept myheart-felt felicitations." She beamed upon him.

  "I should prefer your condolences," said he, in a voice from the depths.

  "_Allons donc!_ Cheer up," laughed she, dallying with her bliss. "Menhave died, and worms have eaten them, but not for love."

  "I wonder," said John. "That is a statement, it seems to me, which wouldbe the better for some proving."

  "At all events," said she, "you, for one, are not dead yet."

  "No," admitted he; "though I could almost wish I was."

  "Do you mean to say she has definitely rejected you?" she demanded,alarmed.

  "Fortune has spared her that necessity," said John. "I haven't askedher, and I never shall. I haven't any money."

  "Pooh! Is that all?" scoffed her ladyship, relieved. "You haveprospects."

  "Remote ones--the remoter the better. I won't count on dead men'sshoes," said John.

  "What is it your little fortune-teller at the Castle calls you?" askedLady Blanchemain, shrewdly, her dark old eyebrows up.

  "She calls me _lucus a non lucendo_," was John's quick riposte; and thelady laughed.

  But in a moment she pulled a straight face. "I seriously counsel you tohave more faith," she said. "Go home and ask her to marry you; and ifshe accepts,--you'll see. Money will come. Besides, your rank and yourprospective rank are assets which you err in not adding to the balance.Go home, and propose to her."

  "'Twould do no good," said John, dejectedly. "She regards me withimperturbable indifference. I've made the fieriest avowals to her, andshe's never turned a hair."

  Lady Blanchemain looked bewildered. "You've made avowals--?" shefalteringly echoed.

  "I should rather think so," John affirmed. "Indirect ones, of course,and I hope inoffensive, but fiery as live coals. In the third person,you know. I've given her two and two; she has, you may be sure, enoughskill in mathematics to put 'em together."

  "And she never turned a hair?" the lady marvelled.

  "She jeered at me, she mocked me, she laughed and rode away," said he.

  "She's probably in love with you," said Lady Blanchemain. "If a womanwill listen, if a woman will laugh! If you don't propose to her now,having ensnared her young affections, you'll be something worse than thewicked nobleman of song and story."

  "Oh, well," John responded, conciliatory, "I dare say some of these daysa proposal will slip out when I least intend it. So I shall have donethe honourable thing--and I'm sure I can trust her to play fair and sayme nay."

  Lady Blanchemain slowly shook her head. "I'm glad you're not _my_lover," she devoutly murmured, plying her fan.

  "Oh, but I am," cried John, with a bow, and an admiring flash of theeyes.

  Her soft old face lighted up; then it took on an expression ofresolution, and she set her strong old jaws.

  "In that case," she remarked, "you will have the less reluctance ingranting a favour I'm about to ask you."

  "What's the favour?" said John, in a tone of readiness.

  "I want you to buy a pig in a poke," said she.

  "Oh?" questioned he.

  "Yes," said she. "I want you to make me a promise blindfold. I want youto promise in the dark that you will do something. What it is thatyou're to do you're not to know till the time comes. Will you promise?"

  "Dearest lady," said the trustful young man, "I'm perfectly confidentthat you would never ask me to do anything that I couldn't do withprofit to myself. Buy a pig in a poke? From you, without a moment'shesitation. Of course I promise."

  "Bravo, bravo," applauded Lady Blanchemain, glowing at her easy triumph."In a few days you'll receive a letter. That will tell you what it isyou're pledged to. And now, to reward you, come with me to mysitting-room, and I will make you a little present."

  When they had reached her sitting-room (dim and cool, with itshalf-drawn blinds and the straw-coloured linen covers of its furniture),she put into his hands a small case of shagreen, small and hard,
and atthe edges white with age.

  "Go to the window and see what's in it," she said.

  And obeying, "By Jove, what a stunner!" he exclaimed. The case containeda ring, a light circle of gold, set with a ruby, surrounded by a row ofdiamonds,--for my part, I think the most beautiful ruby I have everseen. It was as big as a hazel-nut, or almost; it was cut, withinnumerable facets, in the shape of a heart; and it quivered and burned,and flowed and rippled, liquidly, with the purest, limpidest red fire.

  "'Tis the spirit of a rose, distilled and crystallized," said LadyBlanchemain.

  "'Tis a drop of liquid light," said John. "But why do you give it to me?I can't wear it. I don't think I ought to accept it."

  "Nobody asks you to wear it," said Lady Blanchemain. "It's a woman'sring, of course. But as for accepting it, you need have no scruples.It's an old Blanchemain gem, that was in the family a hundred yearsbefore I came into it. It's properly an heirloom, and you're the heir.I give it to you for a purpose. Should you ever become engaged, I desireyou to placcit upon the finger of the adventurous woman."