My Friend Prospero

  VIII

  When the first stress of their emotion had in some degree spent itselfLady Blanchemain, returning to her place on the ottoman, bade John sitdown beside her.

  "Now," she said, genially imperative, whilst all manner of kindly andadmiring interest shone in her face, "there are exactly nine million andninety-nine questions that you'll be obliged to answer before I've donewith you. But to begin, you must clear up at once a mystery that's beentroubling me ever since you dashed to my rescue at the gate. What in thename of Reason is the cause of your residence in this ultramundanestronghold?"

  John--convict me of damnable iteration if you must: Heaven has sent me alaughing hero--John laughed.

  "Oh," he said, "there are several causes--there are exactly nine millionand ninety-eight."

  "Name," commanded Lady Blanchemain, "the first and the last."

  "Well," obeyed he, pondering, "I should think the first, the last, andperhaps the chief intermediate, would be--the whole blessed thing." Andhis arm described a circle which comprehended the castle and all withinit, and the countryside without.

  "It has a pleasant site, I'll not deny," said Lady Blanchemain. "Butdon't you find it a trifle far away? And a bit up-hill? I'm staying atthe Victoria at Roccadoro, and it took me an hour and a half to drivehere."

  "But since," said John, with a flattering glance, "since you _are_ here,I have no further reason to deplore its farawayness. So few places arefar away, in these times and climes," he added, on a note of melancholy,as one to whom all climes and times were known.

  "Hum!" said Lady Blanchemain, matter-of-fact. "Have you been here long?"

  "Let me see," John answered. "To-day is the 23rd of April. I arrivedhere--I offer the fact for what it may be worth--on the Feast of AllFools."

  "_Absit omen_," cried she. "And you intend to stay?"

  "Oh, I'm at least wise enough not to fetter myself with intentions,"answered John.

  She looked about, calculating, estimating.

  "I suppose it costs you the very eyes of your head?" she asked.

  John giggled.

  "Guess what it costs--I give it to you in a thousand."

  She continued her survey, brought it to a period.

  "A billion a week," she said, with finality. John exulted.

  "It costs me," he told her, "six francs fifty a day--wine included."

  "What!" cried she, mistrusting her ears.

  "Yes," said he.

  "Fudge!" said she, not to be caught with chaff.

  "It sounds like a traveller's tale, I know; but that's so often thebother with the truth," said he. "Truth is under no obligation to be_vraisemblable_. I'm here _en pension_."

  Lady Blanchemain sniffed.

  "Does the Prince of Zelt-Neuminster take in boarders?" she inquired,her nose in the air.

  "Not exactly," said John. "But the Parroco of Sant' Alessina does. Iboard at the presbytery."

  "Oh," said Lady Blanchemain, beginning to see light, while her eyebrowswent up, went down. "You board at the presbytery?"

  "For six francs fifty a day--wine included," chuckled John.

  "Wine, and apparently the unhindered enjoyment of--the whole blessedthing," supplemented she, with a reminder of his comprehensive gesture.

  "Yes--the run of the house and garden, the freedom of the hills andvalley."

  "I understand," she said, and was mute for a space, readjusting herimpressions. "I had supposed," she went on at last, "from the handsomeway in which you snubbed that creature in shoulder-knots, and proceededto do the honours of the place, that you were little less than itsproprietor."

  "Well, and so I could almost feel I am," laughed John. "I'm alonehere--there's none my sway to dispute. And as for the creature inshoulder-knots, what becomes of the rights of man or the bases of civilsociety, if you can't snub a creature whom you regularly tip? For fivefrancs a week the creature in shoulder-knots cleans my boots(indifferent well), brushes my clothes, runs my errands (indifferentslow),--and swallows my snubs as if they were polenta."

  "And tries to shoo intrusive trippers from your threshold--and gets anextra plateful for his pains," laughed the lady. "Where," she asked,"does the Prince of Zelt-Neuminster keep himself?"

  "In Vienna, I believe. Anyhow, at a respectful distance. The parroco,who is also his sort of intendant, tells me he practically never comesto Sant' Alessina."

  "Good easy man," quoth she. "Yes, I certainly supposed you were histenant-in-fee, at the least. You have an air." And her bob of the headcomplimented him upon it.

  "Oh, we Marquises of Carabas!" cried John, with a flourish.

  She regarded him doubtfully.

  "Wouldn't you find yourself in a slightly difficult position, if thePrince or his family should suddenly turn up?" she suggested.

  "I? Why?" asked John, his blue eyes blank.

  "A young man boarding with the parroco for six francs a day--" shebegan.

  "Six francs fifty, please," he gently interposed.

  "Make it seven if you like," her ladyship largely conceded. "Wouldn'tyour position be slightly false? Would they quite realize who you were?"

  "What could that possibly matter? wondered John, eyes blanker still.

  "I could conceive occasions in which it might matter furiously," saidshe. "Foreigners can't with half an eye distinguish amongst us, as weourselves can; and Austrians have such oddly exalted notions. Youwouldn't like to be mistaken for Mr. Snooks?"

  "I don't know," John reflected, vistas opening before him. "It might berather a lark."

  "Whrrr!" said Lady Blanchemain, fanning herself with herpocket-handkerchief. Then she eyed him suspiciously. "You're hiding thenine million other causes up your sleeve. It isn't merely the 'wholeblessed thing' that's keeping an eaglet of your feather alone in animprobable nest like this--it's some one particular thing. In my time,"she sighed, "it would have been a woman."

  "And no wonder," riposted John, with a flowery bow.

  "You're very good--but you confuse the issue," said she. "In my time theworld was young and romantic. In this age of prose and prudence--_is_ ita woman?"

  "The world is still, is always, young and romantic," said John,sententious. "I can't admit that an age of prose and prudence ispossible. The poetry of earth is never dead, and no more is its folly.The world is always romantic, if you have the three gifts needful tomake it so."

  "_Is_ it a woman?" repeated Lady Blanchemain.

  "And the three gifts are," said he, "Faith, and the sense of Beauty, andthe sense of Humour."

  "And I should have thought, an attractive member of the opposite sex,"said she. "_Is_ it a woman?"

  "Well," he at last replied, appearing to take counsel with himself, "Idon't know why I should forbid myself the relief of owning up to youthat in a sense it is."

  "Hurray!" cried she, moving in her seat, agog, as one who scented herpet diversion. "A love affair! I'll be your confidante. Tell me allabout it."

  "Yes, in a sense, a love affair," he confessed.

  "Good--excellent," she approved. "But--but what do you mean by 'in asense'?"

  "Ah," said he, darkly nodding, "I mean whole worlds by that."

  "I don't understand," said she, her face prepared to fall.

  "It isn't one woman--it's a score, a century, of the dear things," heannounced.

  Her face fell. "Oh--?" she faltered.

  "It's a love affair with a type," he explained.

  She frowned upon him. "A love affair with a type--?"

  "Yes," said he.

  She shook her head. "I give you up. In one breath you speak like aMohammedan, in the next like--I don't know what."

  "With these," said John, his band stretched towards the wall. "With thetype of the Quattrocento."

  He got upon his feet, and moved from picture to picture; and a fire,half indeed of mischief; but half it may be of real enthusiasm,glimmered in his eyes.

  "With these lost ladies of old years; these soft-coloured shadows, thatwere once rosy flesh; these pr
oud, humble, innocent, subtle, brave, shy,pious, pleasure-loving women of the long ago. With them; with their hairand eyes and jewels, their tip-tilted, scornful, witty little noses,their 'throats so round and lips so red,' their splendid raiment; withtheir mirth, pathos, passion, kindness and cruelty, their infinitevariety, their undying youth. Ah, the pity of it! Their undyingyouth--and they so irrevocably dead. Peace be to their souls! See," hesuddenly declaimed, laughing, "how the sun, the very sun in heaven, iscontending with me, as to which of us shall do them the greater homage,the sun that once looked on their living forms, and remembers--see howhe lights memorial lamps about them," for the sun, reflected from thepolished floor, threw a sheen upon the ancient canvases, and burnedbright in the bosses of the frames. "Give me these," he wound up, "abook or two, and a jug of the parroco's 'included wine'--my wildernessis paradise enow."

  Lady Blanchemain's eyes, as she listened, had become deep wells ofdisappointment, then gushing fountains of reproach.

  "Oh, you villain!" she groaned, when he had ended, shaking her prettyfist. "So to have raised my expectations, and so to dash them!--Do you_really_ mean," still clinging to a shred of hope, she pleaded, "really,really mean that there's no--no actual woman?"

  "I'm sorry," said John, "but I'm afraid I really, really do."

  "And you're not--not really in love with any one?"

  "No--not really," he said, with a mien that feigned contrition.

  "But at your age--how old are you?" she broke off to demand.

  "Somewhere between twenty-nine and thirty, I believe," he laughed.

  "And in such a romantic environment, and not on account of a woman! It'sdownright unnatural," she declared. "It's flat treason against thekingly state of youth."

  "I'm awfully sorry," said John. "Yet, after all, what's the good ofrepining? Nothing could happen even if there were a woman."

  Lady Blanchemain looked alarmed.

  "Nothing could happen? What do you mean? You're not _married_? If youare, it must be secretly, for you're put down as single in Burke."

  "To the best of my knowledge," John reassured her, laughing, "Burke isright. And I prayerfully trust he may never have occasion to revise hisstatement."

  "For mercy's sake," cried she, "don't tell me you're a woman-hater!"

  "That's just the point," said he. "I'm an adorer of the sex."

  "Well, then?" questioned she, at a loss. "How can you 'prayerfully' wishto remain a bachelor? Besides, aren't you heir to a peerage? What of thesuccession?"

  "That's just the point," he perversely argued. "And you know there areplenty of cousins."

  "Just the point! just the point!" fretted Lady Blanchemain. "What's justthe point? Just the point that you aren't a woman-hater?--just the pointthat you're heir to a peerage? You talk like Tom o' Bedlam."

  "Well, you see," expounded John, unruffled, "as an adorer of the sex,and heir to a peerage, I shouldn't want to marry a woman unless I couldsupport her in what they call a manner becoming her rank--and Icouldn't."

  "Couldn't?" the lady scoffed. "I should like to know why not?"

  "I'm too--if you will allow me to clothe my thought in somewhat homelylanguage--too beastly poor."

  "_You--poor?_" ejaculated Lady Blanchemain, falling back.

  "Ay--but honest," asseverated John, to calm her fears.

  She couldn't help smiling, though she resolutely frowned.

  "Be serious," she enjoined him. "Doesn't your uncle make you a suitableallowance?"

  "I should deceive you," answered John, "if I said he made me an_un_suitable one. He makes me, to put it in round numbers, exactly noallowance whatsoever."

  "The--old--curmudgeon!" cried Lady Blanchemain, astounded, and fiercelyscanning her words.

  "No," returned John, soothingly, "he isn't a curmudgeon. But he's avery peculiar man. He's a Spartan, and he lacks imagination. It hassimply never entered his head that I could _need_ an allowance. And, ifyou come to that, I can't say that I positively do. I have a tinypatrimony--threepence a week, or so--enough for my humble necessities,though scarcely perhaps enough to support the state of a future peeress.No, my uncle isn't a curmudgeon; he's a very fine old boy, of whom I'mimmensely proud, and though I've yet to see the colour of his money,we're quite the best of friends. At any rate, you'll agree that it wouldbe the deuce to pay if I were to fall in love.

  "Ffff," breathed Lady Blanchemain, fanning. "What did I say of an age ofprose and prudence? Yet you don't _look_ cold-blooded. What does moneymatter? _Dominus providebit_. Go read Browning. What's 'the true end,sole and single' that we're here for? Besides, have you never heard thatthere are such things as marriageable heiresses in the world?"

  "Oh, yes, I've heard that," John cheerfully assented. "But don't theyalmost always squint or something? I've heard, too, that there are suchthings as tufted fortune-hunters, but theirs is a career that requires aspecial vocation, and I'm afraid I haven't got it."

  "Then you're no true Marquis of Carabas," the lady took him smartly up.

  "You've found me out--I'm only a _faux-marquis_," he laughed.

  "Thrrr!" breathed Lady Blanchemain, and for a little while appeared lostin thought. By-and-by she got up and went to the window, and stoodlooking out. "I never saw a lovelier landscape," she said, musingly."With the grey hills, and the snow-peaks, and the brilliant sky, withthe golden light and the purple shadows, and the cypresses and olives,with the river gleaming below there amongst the peach-blossoms,and--isn't that a blackcap singing in the mimosa? It only needs a pairof lovers to be perfect--it _cries_ for a pair of lovers. And instead ofthem, I find--what? A hermit and celibate. Look here. Make a cleanbreast of it. _Are_ you cold-blooded?" she asked from over her shoulder.

  John merely giggled.

  "It would serve you right," said she, truculently, "if some one were torub your eyes with love-in-idleness, to make you dote upon the nextlive creature that you see."

  John merely chuckled.

  "I'll tell you what," she proceeded, "I'm a bit of an old witch, andI'll risk a soothword. As there isn't already a woman, there'll shortlybe one--my thumbs prick. The stage is set, the scene is too appropriate,the play's inevitable. It was never in the will of Providence that ayouth of your complexion should pass the springtime in a spot allteeming with romance like this, and miss a love adventure. A castle in agarden, a flowering valley, and the Italian sky--the Italian sun andmoon! Your portraits of these smiling dead women too, if you like, tokeep your imagination working. And blackcaps singing in the mimosa. No,no. The lady of the piece is waiting in the wings--my thumbs prick. Giveher but the least excuse, she'll enter, and ... Good Heavens, myprophetic soul!" she suddenly, with a sort of catch in her throat, brokeoff.

  She turned and faced him, cheeks flushed, eyes flashing.

  "Oh, you hypocrite! You monstrous fibber!" she cried, on a tone ofjubilation, looking daggers.

  "Why? What's up? What's the matter?" asked John, at fault.

  "How _could_ you have humbugged me so?" she wailed, in delight,reverting to the window. "Anyhow, she's charming. She's made for thepart. I couldn't pray for a more promising heroine."

  "She? Who?" asked he, crossing to her side.

  "Who? Fie, you slyboots!" she crowed with glee.

  "Ah, I see," said John.

  For, below them, in the garden, just beyond the mimosa (all powderedwith fresh gold) where the blackcap was singing, stood a woman.