CHAPTER XIV
As the summer months advanced, the transformation of the Venetianpalace into the modern hotel proceeded rapidly towards completion.
The outside of the building, with its fine Palladian front looking onthe canal, was wisely left unaltered. Inside, as a matter ofnecessity, the rooms were almost rebuilt--so far at least as the sizeand the arrangement of them were concerned. The vast saloons werepartitioned off into 'apartments' containing three or four rooms each.The broad corridors in the upper regions afforded spare space enoughfor rows of little bedchambers, devoted to servants and to travellerswith limited means. Nothing was spared but the solid floors and thefinely-carved ceilings. These last, in excellent preservation as toworkmanship, merely required cleaning, and regilding here and there, toadd greatly to the beauty and importance of the best rooms in thehotel. The only exception to the complete re-organization of theinterior was at one extremity of the edifice, on the first and secondfloors. Here there happened, in each case, to be rooms of suchcomparatively moderate size, and so attractively decorated, that thearchitect suggested leaving them as they were. It was afterwardsdiscovered that these were no other than the apartments formerlyoccupied by Lord Montbarry (on the first floor), and by Baron Rivar (onthe second). The room in which Montbarry had died was still fitted upas a bedroom, and was now distinguished as Number Fourteen. The roomabove it, in which the Baron had slept, took its place on thehotel-register as Number Thirty-Eight. With the ornaments on the wallsand ceilings cleaned and brightened up, and with the heavyold-fashioned beds, chairs, and tables replaced by bright, pretty, andluxurious modern furniture, these two promised to be at once the mostattractive and the most comfortable bedchambers in the hotel. As forthe once-desolate and disused ground floor of the building, it was nowtransformed, by means of splendid dining-rooms, reception-rooms,billiard-rooms, and smoking-rooms, into a palace by itself. Even thedungeon-like vaults beneath, now lighted and ventilated on the mostapproved modern plan, had been turned as if by magic into kitchens,servants' offices, ice-rooms, and wine cellars, worthy of the splendourof the grandest hotel in Italy, in the now bygone period of seventeenyears since.
Passing from the lapse of the summer months at Venice, to the lapse ofthe summer months in Ireland, it is next to be recorded that Mrs.Rolland obtained the situation of attendant on the invalid Mrs.Carbury; and that the fair Miss Haldane, like a female Caesar, came,saw, and conquered, on her first day's visit to the new LordMontbarry's house.
The ladies were as loud in her praises as Arthur Barville himself.Lord Montbarry declared that she was the only perfectly pretty woman hehad ever seen, who was really unconscious of her own attractions. Theold nurse said she looked as if she had just stepped out of a picture,and wanted nothing but a gilt frame round her to make her complete.Miss Haldane, on her side, returned from her first visit to theMontbarrys charmed with her new acquaintances. Later on the same day,Arthur called with an offering of fruit and flowers for Mrs. Carbury,and with instructions to ask if she was well enough to receive Lord andLady Montbarry and Miss Lockwood on the morrow. In a week's time, thetwo households were on the friendliest terms. Mrs. Carbury, confinedto the sofa by a spinal malady, had been hitherto dependent on herniece for one of the few pleasures she could enjoy, the pleasure ofhaving the best new novels read to her as they came out. Discoveringthis, Arthur volunteered to relieve Miss Haldane, at intervals, in theoffice of reader. He was clever at mechanical contrivances of allsorts, and he introduced improvements in Mrs. Carbury's couch, and inthe means of conveying her from the bedchamber to the drawing-room,which alleviated the poor lady's sufferings and brightened her gloomylife. With these claims on the gratitude of the aunt, aided by thepersonal advantages which he unquestionably possessed, Arthur advancedrapidly in the favour of the charming niece. She was, it is needlessto say, perfectly well aware that he was in love with her, while he washimself modestly reticent on the subject--so far as words went. Butshe was not equally quick in penetrating the nature of her own feelingstowards Arthur. Watching the two young people with keen powers ofobservation, necessarily concentrated on them by the complete seclusionof her life, the invalid lady discovered signs of roused sensibility inMiss Haldane, when Arthur was present, which had never yet shownthemselves in her social relations with other admirers eager to paytheir addresses to her. Having drawn her own conclusions in private,Mrs. Carbury took the first favourable opportunity (in Arthur'sinterests) of putting them to the test.
'I don't know what I shall do,' she said one day, 'when Arthur goesaway.'
Miss Haldane looked up quickly from her work. 'Surely he is not goingto leave us!' she exclaimed.
'My dear! he has already stayed at his uncle's house a month longerthan he intended. His father and mother naturally expect to see him athome again.'
Miss Haldane met this difficulty with a suggestion, which could onlyhave proceeded from a judgment already disturbed by the ravages of thetender passion. 'Why can't his father and mother go and see him atLord Montbarry's?' she asked. 'Sir Theodore's place is only thirtymiles away, and Lady Barville is Lord Montbarry's sister. They needn'tstand on ceremony.'
'They may have other engagements,' Mrs. Carbury remarked.
'My dear aunt, we don't know that! Suppose you ask Arthur?'
'Suppose you ask him?'
Miss Haldane bent her head again over her work. Suddenly as it wasdone, her aunt had seen her face--and her face betrayed her.
When Arthur came the next day, Mrs. Carbury said a word to him inprivate, while her niece was in the garden. The last new novel layneglected on the table. Arthur followed Miss Haldane into the garden.The next day he wrote home, enclosing in his letter a photograph ofMiss Haldane. Before the end of the week, Sir Theodore and LadyBarville arrived at Lord Montbarry's, and formed their own judgment ofthe fidelity of the portrait. They had themselves married early inlife--and, strange to say, they did not object on principle to theearly marriages of other people. The question of age being thusdisposed of, the course of true love had no other obstacles toencounter. Miss Haldane was an only child, and was possessed of anample fortune. Arthur's career at the university had been creditable,but certainly not brilliant enough to present his withdrawal in thelight of a disaster. As Sir Theodore's eldest son, his position wasalready made for him. He was two-and-twenty years of age; and theyoung lady was eighteen. There was really no producible reason forkeeping the lovers waiting, and no excuse for deferring the wedding-daybeyond the first week in September. In the interval, while the brideand bridegroom would be necessarily absent on the inevitable tourabroad, a sister of Mrs. Carbury volunteered to stay with her duringthe temporary separation from her niece. On the conclusion of thehoneymoon, the young couple were to return to Ireland, and were toestablish themselves in Mrs. Carbury's spacious and comfortable house.
These arrangements were decided upon early in the month of August.About the same date, the last alterations in the old palace at Venicewere completed. The rooms were dried by steam; the cellars werestocked; the manager collected round him his army of skilled servants;and the new hotel was advertised all over Europe to open in October.