|Sir Henry Wilberforce sat sipping his morning coffee in his most
leisurely fashion by the table in his own private salon at the Hôtel de
l'Allemagne in Rome. 'Capital man, this fellow Churchill,' he said to
himself approvingly, as he saw Colin close the door noiselessly behind
him! 'By far the best person for the place I've ever had since that
fool Simpson went off so suddenly and got married, confound him. He's
so quiet and unobtrusive in all his movements, and he talks so well, and
has such a respectable accent and manner. Now Dobbs's accent was
quite enough to drive a man wild. I always wanted to throw a boot at
him--indeed I've done it more than once--he was so utterly unendurable.
This fellow, on the other hand, talks really just like a gentleman; in
fact, the only thing I've got to say against him, so far (there's always
something or other turning up in the long run), the only thing I've got
to say against him yet, is that he's positively a deuced sight _too_
gentlemanly and nice-looking and well-mannered altogether. A servant
oughtn't to be _too_ well-mannered. Why, that old Mrs. Cregoe, with the
obvious wig and the powdered face, who sits at the table d'hote nearly
opposite me, actually went up and spoke to him in the passage yesterday,
taking him for one of the visitors! Awkward, exceedingly awkward, when
people mistake your man for your nephew, as she did! But otherwise, the
fellow's really a capital servant. He--well, what the dickens do _you_
want now, I wonder?'
'A signorina below wishes to speak with you, excellency,' the Italian
servant put in, bowing.
'A signorina! What the deuce! Did she give her card, Agostino?'
'The signorina said you would not know her, signor. Shall I introduce
her? Ah! here she is.'
Sir Henry rose and made a slight stiff inclination, as who should say:
'Now what the devil can _you_ want with me, I wonder?' Gwen, nothing
abashed, laid down her card upon the table, which Sir Henry then and
there took up and looked at narrowly, putting on his eyeglass for the
purpose.
'What an ill-mannered surly old bear,' Gwen thought to herself; 'and
what an absurd thing that that delightful Mr. Churchill should have to
go as the old wretch's valet. I shall take care to put a stop to that
arrangement, anyhow.'
'Well,' Sir Henry said, glancing suspiciously from the card to Gwen 'May
I ask--ur--to what I owe the honour of this visit?'
'Oh, certainly,' Gwen answered with perfect composure (she was never
lacking in that repose that stamps the caste of Vere de Vere). 'But as
it's rather a long story to tell, perhaps you'll excuse my sitting down
while I tell it.' And Gwen half took a chair herself, but at the same
time half compelled Sir Henry to push it towards her also, with a sort
of grudging unmannerly politeness. Sir Henry, after standing himself for
a second or two longer, and then discovering that Gwen was waiting for
him to be seated before beginning to disclose her business, dropped in a
helpless querulous fashion into the small armchair opposite, and
prepared himself feebly for the tête-à-tête.
'The business I've come about,' Gwen went oft quietly, is a rather
peculiar one. The fact is my father and I travelled to Rome the other
day in the same railway carriage with your servant, whose name, he told
us, is Colin Churchill.'
Sir Henry nodded a non-committing acquiescence. 'The deuce!' he thought
to himself. 'Something or other turned up already against him.--I
hope, I'm sure, Miss--ur--let me see your card here once more--ur--Miss
Howard-Russell--I hope, I'm sure, he didn't in any way behave
impertinently, or make himself at all disagreeable to you. You see,
one's obliged to put one's servants into carriages with other people on
these continental lines, which of course is very unpleasant for--ur--for
those other people.'
'Not at all,' Gwen answered with a charming smile, which almost melted
even stony old Sir Henry. 'Not at all; quite the contrary, I assure
you. His society and conversation were really quite delightful. Indeed,
that's just what I've come about.'
Sir Henry wriggled uneasily in his chair, put up his eyeglass for
the third time, and stared at Gwen in puzzled wonderment. His valet's
society was really quite delightful! How extraordinary! Could this very
handsome and quite presentable young woman--with a double-barrelled
surname too--be after all nothing more than a lady's maid who had had a
flirtation with his new valet? But if so, and if she had come to propose
for Churchill, so to speak, what the deuce could she want to see _him_
for? He dropped his eyeglass once more in silent dubitation, and merely
muttered cautiously: 'Indeed!'
'Yes, very much so altogether,' Gwen went on boldly, in spite of Sir
Henry's freezing rigidity. 'The fact is, I wanted to speak to you about
him, because, you know, really and truly, he isn't a valet at all, and
he oughtn't to be one.'
Sir Henry started visibly. 'Not a valet!' he cried. 'Why, if it conies
to that, I've found him a very useful and capable person for the place.
But I don't quite understand you. Am I to gather that you mean he's an
impostor--a thief in disguise, or something of that sort? I picked him
up, certainly, under rather peculiar circumstances, just because he
could speak a little Italian.'
Gwen laughed a little joyous ringing laugh. 'Oh, no!' she said quickly,
'nothing of that sort, certainly. I meant quite the opposite. Mr.
Churchill's a sculptor, and a very accomplished well-read artist.'
Sir Henry rose from his chair nervously.
'You don't mean to say so!' he cried in surprise. 'You quite astonish
me. And yet, now you mention it, I've certainly noticed that the young
man had a very gentlemanly voice and accent. And then his manners--quite
unexceptionable. But what the deuce--excuse an old man's freedom of
language--what the deuce, my dear madam, does he mean by playing such
a scurvy trick upon me as this--passing himself off for an ordinary
valet?'
'That's just what I've come about, Sir Henry. He happened to mention
your name to my father and myself, and to allude to the nature of his
relations with you; and I was so much interested in the young man that
I looked your name up in the visitors' list in the “Italian Times,” and
came round to speak to you about him.'
Sir Henry raised his eyebrows slightly, but answered nothing.
'And he's not playing you any trick; that's the worst of it,' Gwen went
on boldly, taking no notice of Sir Henry's indifferent politeness. 'He's
poor, and he's a sculptor. He's been working for several years with a
small Italian artist in the Marylebone Road.'
'Ah! yes, yes; I remember. He said he'd been engaged as a marble-cutter
since he left his last situation. Why, bless my soul, his last situation
was with old Mr. Philip Howard-Russell, of Wootton Mandeville. Let me
see--your card--ah! quite so. He must have been some relation of yours,
I should imagine.'
'My uncle,' Gwen answered, glancing up at him defiantly. To her the
relationship was no introduction.
Sir Henry bowed again slightly. 'Excuse my stupidity,' he said, with
more politeness than he had hitherto shown. 'I ought of course to have
recognised your name at once. I knew your uncle. A most delightful man,
and a brother collector.--The selfish old pig,' he thought to himself
with an internal sneer; 'he was the most disagreeable bumptious
old fellow I ever met in the whole course of my experience. Why, he
pretended to doubt the genuineness of my Pinturicchio! But at least he
was a man of good family, and his niece, in spite of the interest she
evidently takes in my servant Churchill, is no doubt a person whom one
ought to treat civilly.' For Sir Henry was one of those ingenuous people
who don't think there is any necessity at all for treating civilly that
inconsiderable section of humanity which doesn't happen to be connected
with men of good family.
'Yes,' Gwen went on, 'Mr. Churchill, as we learnt quite incidentally,
was a long time since, when he was quite a boy, in my Uncle Philip's
employment. But he has risen by his own talent since then, and now he's
a sculptor: there's his card which he gave me, and he has described
himself there correctly, as you see. Now, he's poor, it seems, and as he
was very anxious to come to Rome, and could find no other way of coming,
he decided to come here as a valet. Wasn't that splendid of him! You can
see at once that such devotion to art shows what a very remarkable young
man he must really be--you're a lover of art yourself, and so you can
sympathise with him--to come away as a servant, so as to get to Rome and
see the works of Michael Angelo, and Raphael, and--and--and--all that
sort of thing, you know,' Gwen added feebly, breaking down in her
strenuous effort for a completion to her imagined trio.
Sir Henry hawed a moment. 'Well, 'he said slowly, 'I must confess I don't
exactly agree with you that it was such a very splendid thing of him
to palm himself off upon me as a servant in this abominable underhand
manner. You'll excuse me, my dear madam, but it seems to me--I may be
wrong, but it seems to me certainly--that a man's either a servant or
a sculptor: confound it all, he can't very well be both together. If he
comes to me and gets a place on the representation that he's a valet,
and then goes and represents to you that he's a sculptor, why, in that
case--in that case, I say, it's the very devil. You'll excuse my saying
it, but hang me if I can see what there is after all so very fine or
splendid about it.'
Gwen bit her lip. 'If you'd heard how beautifully he talked about art
in the train,' she said persuasively, 'and how much he knew about Millet
and Thorwaldsen and the old masters, and how at home he was in all the
great picture-galleries in England, you wouldn't be surprised that he
should wish, by hook or by crook, to come to Italy. Why, he can talk
quite charmingly and delightfully about--about--about Titian and
Perugino and Caravaggio, and I'm sure I don't know how many other great
painters and people.'
Sir Henry bent his head again in silent acquiescence. He remembered now
that mysterious remark of Colin's, on the day of their first meeting, as
to the rival Pinturicchio in the Knowle gallery. The woman was evidently
right: that fellow Churchill was a bit of an artist, and had been
quizzing his personal peculiarities for a whole fortnight, under cover
of acting as valet. Now it's all very well for an enthusiastic young
sculptor to go coming to Rome as a man-servant, in order to study
Michael Angelo and Thorwald-sen, so long as he comes as somebody else's
man-servant; but when he comes as one's own attendant, hang it all,
you know, that's quite another matter. 'Well,' Sir Henry said, looking
curiously at Gwen's embarrassed face, 'and what do you wish to ask me
about my man Churchill?'
Gwen flushed up angrily at the obvious insolence of his inquiry, but
she took no notice of it in words for the sake of her errand. 'I only
called,' she said quietly, 'though it's a little unusual for a lady to
do so' (Sir Henry inclined his head gravely once more, as who should
say I quite agree with you), 'because I felt so much interested in Mr.
Churchill. I think it isn't right to let him remain as a servant; he
ought to be allowed to continue his work as a sculptor without delay.
Sir Henry, you'll release him from his engagement, I'm sure, and let him
go on with his own proper studies.'
'Release him, my dear young lady,' Sir Henry answered sardonically.
'Release him! release him! By Jove, that's hardly the word I should
myself apply to it. I shall certainly send him packing, you may be sure,
at the earliest convenient opportunity, and he may consider himself
deuced lucky if I don't get him into serious trouble for engaging
himself to me under what comes perilously near being false pretences.
You must excuse my frankness, Miss Howard-Russell; but I'm an old man,
and I don't see why I should be left at a minute's notice here in Rome,
at the mercy of these confounded foreigners, without a valet. After what
you tell me, it's plain I can't have him here spying upon me all the
time in every action; but it's devilish uncomfortable, I can tell you,
to be left a thousand miles away from home without anybody on earth to
do anything for one.'
What could Gwen say? She felt instinctively in her own mind that Sir
Henry's complaint was perfectly natural and excusable. When a man
engages a man-servant, he means to engage a person of a certain
comparatively fixed and recognisable social status, and he certainly
doesn't want to have his habits and manners of life made an open secret
to a fellow-being of something like his own level of intelligence and
education; But, on the other hand, she could see, too, that this nice
distinction was never likely to occur to Colin's simple intelligence.
Little as she had seen of him, and little as he had told her of his
story, she quite understood that the old vicar's expageboy wouldn't
be able, in all probability, to feel the difference to Sir Henry
Wilberforce between having him for a valet and having any ordinary
gentleman's servant. However, happily, it didn't much matter what Sir
Henry thought about it: the important point was that that clever young
Mr. Churchill was to be released forthwith from his absurd engagement
and left free to follow his own natural artistic promptings. That was
all, of course, that Gwen, for her part, really cared about.
'Then you'll dismiss him, I suppose?' she asked again after an awkward
pause. 'You'll allow him to take to his proper work as a sculptor?'
'Why, really, my dear lady, I don't care twopence, so far as that goes,
what the dickens he chooses to take to as soon as he's left me; but I'm
certainly not going to keep an educated sculptor fellow spying about me
any longer and collecting notes to retail by-and-by to half Rome upon my
personal peculiarities. Oh dear no, certainly not. I shall pay him his
month's wages and compensation for board and lodging, and I shall send
him about his business this very minute.'
Gwen rose and bowed slightly in her most stately manner. 'If that's so,'
she said quietly, 'the object of my visit's more than attained already.
I won't keep you any longer. Good morning.'
Sir Henry rose in return and answered,
'Good morning,' with frigid courtesy.
Gwen moved towards the door, which Sir Henry was just about to open for
her, when Agostino flung it wide once more from outside, and announced
in a loud voice: 'Signor Churchill, Signor Vintrop.'
Gwen trembled a little. Mr. Churchill! Must she meet him, then, face to
face under these very awkward circumstances? It seemed so, for there was
no escape from it. She couldn't get away before they entered.
The two strangers thus announced walked into the salon together, and
in a moment Gwen saw that it wasn't Colin, but somebody else, somewhat
older, yet a little like him. At the very same moment Hiram Winthrop,
entering that unknown room in that unknown city, felt a sudden thrill
course fiercely through his inmost marrow, and looked up with a glance
of instantaneous recognition to the strange lady. How wonderful! how
magnificent! how unexpected! It was she; it was the glorious apparition
of the Thousand Islands; it was (he knew no other name for her), it was
Gwen of Chester!
Shy and retiring as he was by nature, Hiram so far forgot everything
else at that moment, except his joy at this unexpected meeting, that
he advanced quite naturally and held out his hand to Gwen, who took it
frankly, but with a curious smile of half-inquiring welcome.
'You don't remember me, Miss Gwen,' he said in a voice of some little
disappointment (he could only call her by her Christian name, which mode
of address sounds far less familiar to American ears than to us more
ceremonious English). 'My name is Winthrop, and I've had the pleasure
of meeting you before--once--have you forgotten?... at the Thousand
Islands.'
Gwen shook her head a little doubtfully. 'Well, to say the truth,' she
answered with a pleasant smile, 'I don't quite recollect you. We met so
many people, you see, while we were in America.'
'But I was painting a sketch of a little island near Alexandria Bay,'
Hiram went on eagerly, but somewhat crestfallen (how strange that he
should remember her every feature so well, while she! she had utterly
forgotten him). 'Don't you recollect? you were walking with your father
near the river, and you came across two of us sketching, under a little
cliff at Alexandria Bay, and you came down and looked at my picture.'
'Oh, yes,' Gwen cried, a sudden flash of recognition spreading over her
face. 'I remember all about it now. I remember your picture perfectly.'
(Hiram's eyes brightened immediately.) 'There was a single little island
in it, of course, with a solitary great dark pine towering above it,
against a liquid deep blue background of cloudless sky.' (Hiram nodded
in delight at her accurate description.) 'Oh yes, I remember the picture
perfectly, though I've quite forgotten you yourself.
But I recollect your friend so well; such a charming person, the most
delightful conversation--a Mr. Audouin, he said his name was. I remember
him more distinctly than almost anybody else we met during the whole of
our American visit.'
Poor Hiram! How little Gwen knew as she said those simple words she was
plunging a dagger into his very heart! He almost reeled beneath that
crushing, terrible disappointment. Here for all those long months he had
been treasuring up the picture of Gwen upon his mental vision, thinking
of her, looking at her, dreaming about her; he had come to Europe hoping
and trusting somewhere or other at last to find her; he had stumbled
up against her accidentally his very first day in Rome, and now that he
stood there actually face to face with her, the queen of his fancy, his
heart's ideal--why, she herself had positively forgotten all about him!
She remembered Audouin, that supplanter Audouin; but she had clean
forgotten poor solitary yearning Hiram! What else could he expect,
indeed? It was all perfectly natural. Who was he, that such a one as
Gwen should ever remember him? What presumption, what folly on his part
to expect he could have left the slightest image imprinted upon her
memory! And yet, somehow, in spite of sober reason, he couldn't help
feeling horribly and unutterably disappointed. His face fell with a
sudden collapse, but he managed feebly to mutter half aloud: 'Oh, yes, a
most delightful person, Mr. Audouin.'
Meanwhile, Sir Henry, fidgeting with the back of a chair in his hand,
stood waiting to hear what was the meaning of this singular irruption
of American barbarians. Who were they? Had they come by appointment?
Why did they recognise this real or pretended niece of that old idiot,
Howard-Russell? Was it all a plant to rob or intimidate him? Why
the deuce did they all stand there, shaking hands and exchanging
reminiscences in his own hired salon, and take no notice at all of
him, Sir Henry Wilberforce, the real proprietor and sole representative
authority of that sacred apartment? It was really all most
extraordinary, most irregular, most mysterious.
Sam broke the momentary silence by coming forward towards the old man,
and saying in his clear, half-American tone: 'I presume I'm addressing
Sir Henry Wilberforce?'
Sir Henry nodded. A Yankee, clearly. And yet he gave his name as
Churchill, and wanted no doubt to represent himself as the other
Churchill's brother!
'Well,' Sam went on (and Gwen could not help but wait and listen), 'I've
come to see you about my brother. I asked for him from the person in the
white choker----'
'Agostino,' Sir Henry murmured feebly.
'But he said, as far as I could make out his lingo, that my brother was
gone out. So I just thought the best thing, under the circumstances,
would be to come in and speak to you.' 'And may I ask,' Sir Henry
inquired, still fingering the back of the chair in a nervous manner,
'who your brother may be, and what the devil I have got to do with him?'
'Oh, his name's Churchill,' Sam answered, with some little confusion,
glancing over towards Gwen, who stood listening, half-amused and
half-embarrassed. 'Colin Churchill.
That's my card, you see, colonel-----'
Sir Henry took it and looked at it languidly. 'I see,' he said. 'You
are--ahem--my valet's brother.'
Sam flushed a little angrily. 'That's the very business I've come here
about,' he said, looking as though he would like to knock down the
feeble supercilious old Pantaloon who stood there quavering and
shivering before him. 'My brother being determined to come to Rome to be
a sculptor, and not having the means to come with of his own, you see,
colonel-----'
'My precise military rank, if any, must be a matter of absolute
indifference to you, sir,' Sir Henry interrupted coolly.
'Well, he didn't apply to his family for the means to do so, as he might
have done,' Sam went on, without noticing the interruption, 'but chose
to take a place, quite beneath his natural position, as _your_ valet,
Sir Henry Wilberforce. I happened to come to England at the time from
America, where I've been residing for some years, and learnt on inquiry
that he had taken this very foolish step; so I followed him at once to
Rome, to release him from such an unwise arrangement, if possible, and
to make things pleasant all round, as between the whole lot of us. I
ain't sorry that Colin's gone out, for it enables us to clear off the
whole thing right away, without telling him anything about it. What I
propose, Sir Henry Wilberforce,'--Sam repeated the full name each time a
little viciously, with some adopted republican aversion--'is just this:
I'll telegraph to London to the Couriers' Society to get you a suitable
person sent out here to replace him. If you like, I'll get you a
selection sent out on approval, and I'll pay their expenses; we
don't want to put you to any inconvenience, you understand, Sir Henry
Wilberforce. But what we stick at is only one point--my brother Colin
can't stop here with you another minute; that's certain. He's got to
leave right away, and go straight off to his own business.'
Sir Henry Wilberforce wrung his hands in helpless despair at this
inexplicable inroad of so many aggressive strangers. 'Upon my word,' he
said piteously, 'I wish to goodness I'd never seen or heard at all of
this extraordinary young man Churchill. Such a deuce of a hullabaloo and
corrobboree as they're kicking up about him, the whole three of them, I
never heard in all my confounded lifetime. Dash their geniuses! Who the
dickens wants a genius for a valet? I'll take precious good care, when
once I'm out of this deuced hobble, that I never engage a fellow who's
been first cousin to a marble-cutter as my servant in future. First this
young lady comes down upon me and lectures me in the name of high art,
what the devil do I mean by keeping this delightful young sculptor
pottering about as my own body-servant. And then this pair of Yankees
come down upon me, in the name of brotherly affection, and ask me what
the devil do I mean by keeping this eminently respectable brother of
theirs in a menial position that I never for a moment wanted him to get
into.--Why, what the devil do you mean yourself, sir, by invading my
premises in this unceremonious manner? Who the devil cares twopence
about you or your brother? If your brother's a sculptor, why the devil
doesn't he stick to his own profession? What the devil does he mean by
coming and passing himself off upon me as a servant? Will you have the
kindness, all of you, to leave my rooms at your earliest convenience,
and be dashed to you? And will you tell this interesting young sculptor,
if you see him, that he may pack up his traps and clear out as soon as
possible? That'll do, thank you. Good morning. Good morning.' And Sir
Henry stood with the door in his hand, waiting for the three to take
their departure.
That same evening, when Sir Henry came in from dinner much agitated, he
found an envelope lying on his table, which he took up and opened in a
surly fashion, saying to himself meanwhile: 'Some deuced impertinence
of that fellow Churchill, I'll be bound--the confounded rascal.' But
it contained only a couple of English bank-notes; a small memorandum of
Colin's railway expenses and other disbursements made by Sir Henry
on his account, as well as of the month's wages, due by a servant who
voluntarily leaves his master without full notice; and finally a
sheet of white note-paper, bearing the words, 'With Saml. Churchill's
compliments.'
Sir Henry crumpled up the paper and memorandum angrily, with hardly a
glance, and flung them into the empty grate; but he folded the notes
carefully, and put them into the inner compartment of his purse. Then
he sat down at his davenport and wrote out a telegram from Wilberforce,
Rome, to Dobbs, 74 Albert Terrace, Dalston, London. 'Come here at
once; expenses paid; wages raised five pounds; no boots thrown. Answer
immediately. W.'
'And if ever I have anything to do again with these confounded
marble-cutters and sculptors,' he soliloquised vehemently, 'why, my name
isn't Henry Wilberforce.'