for Miss Gilpin in the palace of the Marchesa is considerably more
pre-occupied, less communicative, than she is in the lodging of the
Clarksons. Several other people had arrived or were arriving, and a
side-glance of her attention in passing was all she could spare for her
awkward young friend. She was very agile and easy herself, slipping
among the company like a bird of pretty plumage, moving so lightly that
you would never suppose such a fresh young thing to be a woman of
professional learning and experience. She lifts her wide clear gaze to
the face of the person whom she addresses, and it might be almost
embarrassing in its frank admiration, but her gay little well-worded
remarks relieve it; and she never lingers, never clings, she is drawn
away to somebody else and flits on with a shining look behind her; and
so she weaves her dance-figure through the company, and it brings her
gradually to the side of the Principessa--at sight of whom she gives a
tiny jump, as the unexpected pleasure beams out in her childlike eyes.
The Principessa seemed to be less surprised, and Miss Gilpin got rather
a cool return for her sparkle of delight. The dance was arrested with
some abruptness; but there is this about Miss Gilpin, that she always
has her wits about her and can adapt herself to a sudden change of plan.
Her eye darted quickly forward to the Marchesa--and it was to the
Marchesa after all that she had a particular word to say, if the other
lady would forgive her for hastening on. One can safely count on the
excellent Marchesa; yet it must be confessed that life is complicated,
and Miss Gilpin sank a little wearily into an absorbing conversation
with our hostess.
But what was the pretty plumage of Miss Gilpin, even at its most
unruffled, compared with the rich hues of the creature that now swooped
upon the modest gathering? Half flower and half bird--half peony and
half macaw--Madame de Baltasar was in our midst; and so much so that
nothing else for a while was in our midst--the central object was Madame
de Baltasar. Peony in face, macaw in voice and raiment, she embraced and
enveloped the Marchesa--who closed her eyes, evidently in prayer, as she
nerved herself for the assault. The poor pale lady bore it
unflinchingly, but that was all; she was cowed, she was numbed, by the
mere voice of the visitor, equally penetrating in any language. The
visitor, however, had no further need for the Marchesa; what she needed
was a slim and very beautiful young man who happened to be talking to
the Principessa--she plucked and removed him without delay. Even as she
did so another young man, also very well in his fashion, appeared
accidentally in her path; he too was annexed; and Madame de Baltasar,
doing what she could to lend them a conquering rather than a consenting
air, established them in a corner with herself between them. The
Marchesa, reviving, gave a sudden gasp at the sight; for the second
victim, who was a very British and candid-looking youth in naval
uniform, was one of the dear boys, her nephews, and a glimpse of the
peony-face beside him brought the letter from Devonshire very sharply to
her mind. “A few nice friends--!” The Principessa looked up with humour.
“I feel for you, dear Gertrude,” she said, “but what do you expect? Why
ever do you let that woman into your house?” “I don’t let her,” wailed
the Marchesa, very helpless. “Well, she’s grabbed Don Mario from me and
your nephew from you,” said the Principessa comically; “at any rate
they’ll keep her quiet for a time.” A peal of liberal shrieks rang out
from the lady in the corner, and the Marchesa closed her eyes again in a
mute petition.
It was a pleasantly expressive picture all the same, that of the group
in the corner. The parti-coloured lady, who was by no means young, had
so settled herself that she appeared imprisoned, penned in her place by
two masterful men; and it would be natural to suppose that the two men
were disputing for possession of her, but this effect was less easily
contrived--since one of the men was English, of an odd unchivalrous
tribe whose ways are beyond calculation. I don’t know what race had
produced Madame de Baltasar--the united effort of them all, may be, for
all their tongues were mingled in her shrieks; but there was no doubt
concerning Don Mario--he was the last perfection of Latinity and he
played his part. He was peerlessly beautiful, and he sat with his long
fingers entwined about his knee, his eyes attentively upon the peony,
his cold profile turned with utter correctness to his rival. He was far
too mannerly, of course, to be jealous, to be hostile in any open
movement; even when his rival failed to notice the lady’s glove on the
floor it was only by the barest implication of a gesture that Don Mario
rebuked and triumphed over him. A lady in a corner may rely on Don
Mario; however hard she begins to find it to tighten that horrid loose
fold under her chin, however mauve the powder on her cheek now shows
upon the underlying crimson, Don Mario’s eyes are still fixed on her in
deep unwavering attention. And Madame de Baltasar, I dare say, had by
this time schooled herself to be blind to something that she might
easily have seen, if she had chosen, in his steady regard--in that
knightly “belgarde” which she accepted without scrutinizing it too
closely; for he wasn’t troubled to hide the serene amused impudence with
which he played his part. The crazy old ruin, with her cautious neckband
and her ruddled wrinkles--he lent himself politely to her ancient game,
remarking that she had grown careless in the handling of the orange
lights in her hair, which were certainly fitful and obscured towards the
roots. But a lady needn’t concern herself with the finer shades in Don
Mario’s eloquent looks; he can be thoroughly trusted, at any rate in a
public corner of a drawing-room.
An Englishman on the other hand, a candid young Briton, is a queer
untutored thing of which you can never be really sure. The Marchesa’s
nephew was pink and pleasant, and his undisguised interest in Madame de
Baltasar might please her, you would think, for any one could see that
it was much more genuine than Don Mario’s. It did please her, no doubt,
and she liberally challenged and rallied him; she gave him more than his
share, it was he who had the full blaze of her charms. He luminously
faced them in return with the frankest interest and wonder; never, never
had he seen such a wildly remarkable object. “Well, of all the queer old
picture-cards--!” he said to himself; and he laughed with a volleying
explosion at the freedom of her humour. He liked her too, the quaint old
freak and spark that she was; you couldn’t help liking her loud familiar
cackle, her point-blank coquetries discharged with such brass and
bounce; she brisked you up and rattled you on in a style you don’t
expect in the Marchesa’s solemn saloon. To Madame de Baltasar, no doubt,
the pink British face was an open book, and in his barbaric fashion the
young man was well enough, and she enjoyed herself. But then his
barbarism was declared in a manner of simplicity which proved to her,
yes, that these island-seamen are not to be trusted as one may trust Don
Mario. The open young sailor, instead of turning his own more faulty
profile to his rival and ousting him in triumph--what must he do but
burst out pleasantly to the knightly Latin, appeal to him with mirthful
eyes, join hands with him hilariously to watch the sport! It was so,
there was no mistaking it; the young British monster had drawn the other
man, his antagonist, into a partnership of youth, irreverent,
unchivalrous, to watch the raree-show of this marvellous old bird and
stimulate her to wilder efforts. And so naturally too, so ingenuously,
like the great silly oaf that he really was, with his long legs and huge
hands! It hadn’t so much as crossed his mind that a woman, still a fine
woman in her ripeness, was signally honouring a man; he only saw a crazy
jolly absurd old sport who made him laugh so heartily that he had to
share the fun with his neighbour. One can’t be surprised if Madame de
Baltasar asked herself what, in heaven’s name, they teach these young
monsters in their barbaric wild.
I find it impossible to tear my eyes from the group. What, I wonder,
does Don Mario think of the young Englishman? They were evidently much
of an age; but Don Mario could regard himself, no doubt, as a highly
experienced gentleman compared with this bubbling school-boy. He knew
the world, he knew himself, he very well knew the lady; and I fear it
must be inferred that he thought the Englishman a negligible simpleton.
The school-boy’s familiarity could hardly please him, but he took it
with his accomplished amenity, transformed it into a quiet and neutral
kindness and handed it back; and the Englishman--ah, this is where the
simple youth enjoys such an advantage, where he is unassailable--he saw
no difference at all between what he gave and what he received again, he
supposed they were the same. The same--his own thoughtless guffaw of
companionship, Don Mario’s civilized and discriminating smile!--well
might Don Mario feel that the barbarian took much for granted.
Communication upon such terms is out of the question, with the
Englishman ready to fall on your neck--in fact the islander’s arm was
affectionately round Don Mario’s at this moment--if you decently mask
your irony in a fine thin smile. But let it not be imagined that the
Roman _civiltà_, heritage of the centuries, will exhibit any signal of
discomfort, even with the hand of the savage patting it sociably and
encouragingly on the back. Don Mario talked easily and with all his
charm; he told a story, some experience of his own, for the
entertainment of the lady. The details escape me, but it was a story in
which the Englishman, listening closely, seemed to detect a drift and
purpose, an approach to a point; and he listened still more carefully,
gazing at the speaker, working it out in his mind; and his brow
contracted, he was lost--but aha! he suddenly saw the light and he
seized the point. “You mean you’re in _love_ with somebody,” he jovially
exclaimed. The words fell with a strange clatter on the polished surface
of the tale, but Don Mario had caught them up in a wink. “Why
certainly,” he said--“I’m in love with Madame de Baltasar.” Lord!--for
the moment it was too quick for the blank and simple youth; but relief
came with the lady’s scream of delighted amusement, and he broke into
the humour of the jest with resounding appreciation. A good fellow,
this Don Whatever-he-is, and a sound old sport, Madame de
What’s-her-name--and altogether a cheerier time than one would look for
at Aunt Gertrude’s rather alarming tea-fight.
The Marchesa herself was finding it less enlivening; one of the dear
boys had got into the wrong corner, the other was still missing, poor
Nora Gilpin _would_ try to waylay the Principessa; and though the
Marchesa was used to the sense that nothing in the world goes ever
easily, she betrayed in her look the weight of all she was carrying. But
she was grateful to the Principessa, and with cause; for so long as Miss
Gilpin was kept at a distance the little American was indeed a treasure
to an anxious hostess. Nothing gayer, nothing more ornamental and
affable could be desired for a festival that threatened to languish. She
sat on a round stool or tuffet, her small person erect, her knee tilted
and her toe pointed like a porcelain shepherdess--a wonder of art, an
exquisite toy of the eighteenth century; and one could infer how
precious and rare the little figure must be from the fact that it was
entirely perfect, not a finger broken, not a rose damaged on her
decorative hat--which showed with what scrupulous care she had been
packed and kept. One could almost have sworn that the tint of clear
colour in her cheek was alert and alive, that it came and went with a
living pulse; she was a triumph of the hand of the craftsman who
produced her. And to think that she came, not from the cabinet of the
Pompadour, but from the roaring market of democracy--how have they
learnt such perfection of delicate workmanship over there? She seemed as
manifestly the result of ages of inherited skill as Don Mario himself;
at least I should say so, perhaps, but for the chance that again places
them side by side before me. For Don Mario, the party in the corner
having at last broken up, had returned to the Principessa; and he stood
by her side, charmingly inclined, with glances more burning, less
scorching, than those he had levelled at the orange-clouded fringe. And
I now remark that with all Don Mario’s beautiful finish he doesn’t set
one gaping at the price he must have cost; one sees in a moment than an
object of that sort is not to be bought with money. “Not to be
bought?”--I can imagine the tone of the Principessa, if she chose to
speak: “He looks as though he weren’t to be bought? Why, it’s exactly
_that_ that will fetch his price, and well he knows it. Not to be
bought indeed!--I could tell you a little about that. Now there behind
you--_there’s_ where money fails, if you like!”
She meant of course the Marchesa; and with the unspoken word of the
china shepherdess in my ear I swing round towards the spectacle she
faces. The sudden movement surprises the effect to which the Principessa
no doubt alluded; I catch the Marchesa from the right point of view and
I understand. The harassed soul was easier now, for the tropical
intruder had departed and the simple seaman was re-established in more
temperate company; the letter from Devonshire was no longer a reproach.
The Marchesa breathed more freely; she stood for a moment unoccupied,
resting upon her relief, almost persuaded that the world was leaving her
in peace. She was no worldling, the good lady; neither she nor her
forefathers had taken thought to be prepared for the world, to study the
arts with which it may be repulsed, attracted, trodden under or turned
to account. The Marchesa had no manners, no glances, no speeches--no
raiment even, you might say--but those of her kindly nature, the
well-meaning right-intending soul that she happened to be. She was not a
work of art; and therein is the effect that she makes in her Roman
palace, the effect you may surprise if you follow the word of the
Principessa and look suddenly round. There clings about her, and she
seems to diffuse it upon the company, a pallor of simple daylight, a
grey uncertain glimmer from a morning in Devonshire; and it gives her a
friendly gentle air, for it is the light to which she was born and it is
natural to her; but to the Principessa, to Don Mario, even to the Roman
palace, it is not a trifle disastrous. The pretty little work of art
upon the tuffet was aware of it, and I could fancy that she bids me
look, look again at _her_, to see how ghastly her china-tints have
become in the dimness of a rainy English morning. I won’t say that--the
Principessa exaggerated, perhaps defiantly; but it certainly was plain
that she wasn’t intended to face the open weather. Good Aunt Gertrude,
troubled and incompetent in facing the world, could be left out in rain
and storm at any time, and none the worse. The fibre that is by this
betokened is not, we understand, to be bought for money. The Principessa
may be right, but I doubt whether she honestly wishes her child to
acquire it. After all the Marchesa is about as ornamental as the
waterproof in which as a girl she braved the weather of an uncertain
climate.
And now there arrived, there crossed the room with a quick step, there
shook hands ceremoniously with the Marchesa, a personage whose
appearance in that company I hadn’t at all expected. Deering!--who could
have supposed that Deering would present himself here, and that too at
the very hour which is consecrated to the plush and marble of the real
Rome in the Via Nazionale? He caught my eye as he crossed the room, and
he smiled, as I thought, self-consciously; it put him slightly to the
blush that I should see him attending the mild tea-pot of the Marchesa.
She greeted him with pleased effusion and drew him aside; I wasn’t near
enough to hear their talk, but the Marchesa had evidently much to say,
and Deering listened with his well-known gleam of sarcastic observation.
He was quite becomingly at his ease, and his flower-droop was markedly
successful--it was clearly one of his more slender days; but I noticed
that in the patched and tattered saloon, which had struck me as the
topmost height of all the Romanism I had met with, the careful
composition of his Roman clothing looked alien and singular. He may have
been dressed in the taste of the real Rome, but the result was to make
him appear as much of a stranger in the palace of the Dark Shops as the
forlorn Marchesa herself. That good lady presently released him, and he
made his way towards me--but with a signal to me to wait as he did so,
for he stopped momentarily in passing beside the Marchesa’s nephew and
laid a light finger on his shoulder. The young seaman looked round,
nodded familiarly and went on with his talk. I shall never get to the
end of Deering, and I told him so when he joined me; for I didn’t see
how or where these excellent people should fit into the circle of his
associations, those with which he had dazzled me when we met last month
by the Tortoises. I had been supposing that _my_ way, though it was he
who had smarted me on it, was steadily leading me further from the world
he had sketched so brilliantly as his own. Yes, said Deering, I might
well be surprised; but he could assure me it was much more surprising to
himself. He had no intention, however, of lingering--he proposed that I
should come away with him at once. Could he fly so soon?--it seemed
abrupt, but he waved off my scruple and led me immediately to the
Marchesa to take our leave. “Good-bye, Aunt Gertrude,” he said--“I fear
I must be going.” “Good-bye, dear boy,” returned the Marchesa; “come
very soon and see me again.”
He was the missing nephew!--the stroke of his revelation of the fact was
thoroughly successful, for it took me absurdly by surprise. My thought
travelled back to the poor flimsy mountebanks of the Via Nazionale, and
I perceived that they had divined my detached and scornful Deering, him
with the gypsy in his blood, even more shrewdly than I had supposed--or
rather, no doubt, they had had fuller information than mine. He had told
them nothing, but they knew all about him, trust them--they knew how
firmly his other foot was planted upon a solider world than theirs. When
Deering and I now issued from the portal of the classic name I stopped
him, I pointed to the name and the vast grey palace-front, and I asked
him how he had had the face to talk to me in my innocence about his
“real Rome” of the tram-lines and the plate-glass windows--with all this
within a few yards of us at the very moment. Had he been ashamed of me,
unwilling to present me to Aunt Gertrude and the monument of history up
his sleeve?--no indeed, and I didn’t even put the question, for
Deering’s motives are much loftier than this. Rather it was magnificent
of him, I confessed, to drop the palace, disregard the grandiose name,
neglect it as unworthy of mention compared with the company of the
mountebanks at the marble-topped table. But how he had deceived me--I
now trusted his word no more, and I began to see trickery of some sort
even in that chance encounter with him the other day by the English
tea-room; he was probably then on his way to join the Marchesa in her
afternoon drive on the Pincio. And it was he, perverse and double-lived,
who had for a brother that soul of open candour I had just been
studying. “I have never consented,” said Deering rather primly, “to be
judged in the light of my relations. I take my way, and I gave you the
opportunity of taking it too. You have bungled it so shockingly that it
has brought you to this.”
It had brought us in fact to the neighbouring Square of the Tortoises;
there were the four boys crouched beneath the bowl of the fountain,
clutching the tails of the tortoises in the ripple of the water, the
dapple of the sunlight. Where would Deering’s line have brought me if I
had clung to him throughout? In the end, it would seem, to the palace of
the Marchesa, which I had reached on my own account; what I may have
missed on the way to it I shall never know. I could declare to him, none
the less, that I had seen many things of singular mark, things that I
should never have discovered in the state of romantic innocence which he
had been the first to corrupt; and for this I thanked him, though on the
matter of Rome’s reality I was even now in confusion as deep as ever. My
authorities wouldn’t agree; and on the whole I maintained to Deering
that my own romance, when now and then I had caught a glimpse of it
between the heads of the crowd, had to my eye a more substantial look
than most of the realities that had been offered me in the place of it.
What had he to say to that? Well then he had to say, regretfully but
distinctly, that I was incurable; and one of the Botticelli hands was
laid upon my arm in a gesture that resigned me, with tenderness, with
compassion, with finality, to the sad ravages of my illusion. “Go back
to your books,” he sighed; “I have done my best--good-bye!” It was
touchingly felt and spoken; the attitude was striking. But his farewell,
I am glad to say, was only rhetorical. We shuffled for a long while to
and fro across the sunny little square, discussing my month of
blunders.
[Illustration]
LONDON: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND GRIGGS (PRINTERS), LTD.
CHISWICK PRESS, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.