WE parted from Mr. Peter A. Chasemore at Bologna owing to a slight
difference of opinion. Carolyn Stokes and myself had the notion that we
should find Venice damp and possibly cold; Mr. Chasemore declared that to
go home without seeing a gondola would give him a pain compared with
which rheumatism might be considered a sensation of acute delight. There
is no use denying the fact that we two women missed Mr. Chasemore a good
deal. Confusion took place on the journey, for which I blamed Carolyn
Stokes, and she blamed me. When with the assistance of luck we did reach
the Belvedere our tempers were not improved by the fact that a young man
and an elderly lady occupied, for the moment, the attention of the hotel
people.
“Norman,” she said to him, as the proprietor eventually came to us, “you
can consider yourself free for the remainder of the day.” He bowed.
“Give me that; I will take charge of it.” Both Carolyn Stokes and myself
noticed the name on the label as the leather case was being transferred.
I suppose the fact that there are no such titles where we come from
caused the encounter to make an impression upon us; we watched her as she
went up in the elevator, and noticed the special consideration paid by
attendants. At home we reckon everybody to be equal, with a few
exceptions, but here it was evident that to be called Lady Mirrible
counted for something, and we naturally fell in with the local view.
When you are in Rome you should do as the Romans do; the remark applies
equally well to Florence. The young man gave way to us at the desk of
the concierge, and Carolyn Stokes offered him a large smile.
“Have you come far?” she asked.
“Fairly good distance.”
“Are you going soon?”
“That doesn’t quite depend upon me,” he replied.
I mentioned when we were in our room that a considerable amount of
information had not been extracted, and Carolyn Stokes said no doubt I
should prove more successful in the game. I replied that this seemed
highly probable, and we did not speak to each other again until the gong
sounded in the corridor announcing that the meal was almost ready.
Downstairs in the reading-room we encountered a nasty jar in the
discovery that none of the rest of the people had dressed specially for
dinner. This was one of the small difficulties caused by the absence of
a man capable of making inquiries beforehand.
“I beg your pardon,” he remarked. He had taken the _Herald_ from the
table just as my hand went out; he replaced it and selected a London
journal. I was determined to let Carolyn Stokes see that I could manage
the situation better than she had done.
“You are not an American?” I asked.
“I am only English.”
“We have met several very pleasant folk from your country in the course
of our travels.”
“How extremely fortunate.”
“What startles us amongst you is your class distinctions. You should, I
think, make an endeavour to break down the barriers.”
“Something ought certainly to be done,” he agreed. And went off with his
newspaper.
Carolyn Stokes mentioned—not for the first time—that she was old enough
to be my mother, and went on to argue that whereas it was quite
permissible for a woman of her age to speak at an hotel to a stranger,
the case was entirely different where a girl of twenty was concerned.
All the same when she found him seated at the next table in the
dining-room she allowed me to take the chair which enabled me to speak
across to him without twisting my neck. From what I heard him say to the
waiter I gained that her ladyship was taking the meal in her own room.
Carolyn Stokes has many estimable qualities, but I have more than once
had to point out to her that she does not exercise a sufficient amount of
restraint over her conversational powers. Also she pitches her voice
somewhat high, rather as though she, being at Liverpool, were addressing
a public meeting in New York. I am myself a good and fluent talker, but
my chances are small if I enter into competition with Carolyn. It was
difficult, however, to overlook the fact that he preferred listening to
me, and when we both spoke at once it was I who secured his attention. I
asked him what there was to be seen in Florence of an evening when the
picture galleries were closed, and he said we could not do better than
stroll down the Lung ’Arno, see the Vecchio bridge, returning by way of
the Piazza Vittore Emmanuele.
“We should scarcely dare to go out alone,” I remarked.
He crumbled his bread for a moment.
“I think,” he said, “it will be possible for me to place myself at your
disposal.”
“That is perfectly sweet of you,” cried Carolyn Stokes. We arranged to
meet at nine o’clock in the entrance hall.
Taking our coffee in the drawing-room Carolyn and myself came to the
conclusion that there was more in the wisdom of Providence than some
people care to admit. If Mr. Chasemore had decided to come on with us to
Florence the likelihood was that we should have had no opportunity of
making this very fortunate and delightful acquaintance; there would have
been less to record in our diaries under the heading of that day.
Carolyn’s impression was that the son of a titled lady was a viscount,
but she could not be certain; she had on some far-distant occasion
studied the matter thoroughly, but most of the information then acquired
seemed to have been erased from her mind. Anyway the chance was too good
to lose, and Carolyn Stokes said the great thing was to exhibit not too
much eagerness, but to allow friendship to ripen, so to speak, in the
course of the next twenty-four hours. Carolyn has a distinct streak of
sentimentality in her character, and she spoke of the influence of blue
Italian skies and the moon shining on the water, and Dante and Beatrice,
and the new hat I had purchased in the Via Condotti at Rome. We went
upstairs to put on some wraps.
In the passage her ladyship’s head was out of her door, and she was
calling in an imperative kind of way.
“Norman, Norman! Where on earth has he got to again? Never here somehow
when he’s wanted.” One of the hotel maids came along and she gave her a
message. “The lad really,” she said, taking her head in, “is perfectly
useless.”
Carolyn Stokes was occupying a few minutes later a central position at
the mirror in our room when she suddenly gave a shriek; I assumed it was
only the presence of a moth in the room. As she did not shriek again I
considered the hideous danger was past and done with, and I requested her
to permit me to share the mirror for a moment.
“Child,” she announced in a subdued sort of voice and still gazing into
the glass, “I have seen it all in a flash. You are under the impression
that he is some sort of a nobleman. He is nothing of the kind. He is
merely a footman or a courier, paid a moderate amount per week to attend
on this Lady Somebody. That’s what he is,” she said, striking the
dressing table, “and I am more thankful than I can express that I have
discovered it in time.”
“The question can be easily decided,” I mentioned. “We have only to
glance in the book kept at the desk below.”
“I did that, but they have not yet registered.”
“Then a question must be put to the people of the hotel.”
“That I also did,” replied Carolyn Stokes, “and their acquaintance with
the American language made them assume that I required a postcard with a
view of the cathedral. They have no right,” she went on vehemently, “in
these foreign hotels to allow a footman to dine with the other guests. I
know it is done, but no one will persuade me that it is right or fair to
respectable visitors. It ought to be stopped.”
I sat on the rocking chair and took some violent exercise for a few
minutes in order to collect my thoughts. It seemed we were in a somewhat
difficult corner. To stay in our room only meant that he would come and
knock at the door; the wisest plan appeared to be to effect an escape.
Carolyn Stokes, for once, agreed with me.
“I wish Mr. Chasemore were here,” she said.
We went along the corridor very quietly and crept down the staircase.
From the last landing we could see him waiting near the desk of the
concierge. There was no means of slipping past without being seen.
“I tell you what to do!” I whispered. “You must go and inform him that I
have been taken suddenly ill.”
“A good idea,” she said, “but I would so much rather you went and told
him that I was ill.”
He tapped with his walking-stick impatiently on the floor, moved to
examine letters in the rack. I pulled at Carolyn Stokes’s arm in order
to persuade her to make a run for it; before I could arouse her dormant
intelligence he had returned to his former position. He glanced at the
clock and at his watch; Carolyn Stokes sat on the stairs.
“Meanwhile,” I grumbled, “we are missing valuable moments in a most
interesting and historical city.”
“Think,” she said impressively, “think of the fate from which I have
saved you.”
The call of “Norman!” came again, but apparently it did not reach his
ears. I am a creature of impulse and, without thinking, I imitated the
call. He whipped off his cap at once, laid down his walking-stick and
started up, taking two steps at a time and coming near to us.
Carolyn Stokes and myself will never be able to decide which of us took
the initiative, which gripped at the other and used some amount of force.
We discovered ourselves in the nearest room, where an elderly gentleman
was about to retire to rest; I had never thought the time would come when
I should be thankful for not understanding a foreign language. The young
man rushed by; we made our escape just as the aged person was about to
throw a hair brush.
We tried to persuade ourselves, in walking along the side of the river,
that all was well that ended well. Carolyn Stokes said the experience
was one she wished never to undergo again, and for some reason reproached
me. We walked as far as the Trinity Bridge, turned to the left, found
ourselves in the Via del Moro, came later to the Piazza de St. Maria
Novello, took what we thought would be a short cut for the hotel, and
lost ourselves. Carolyn Stokes asked the way of two or three people in
tones quite loud enough to enable them to understand, but success did not
crown her efforts.
“Why, here you are!” cried an English voice. We turned, and for the
moment we both forgot how anxious we had been not to meet him. “Now, how
in the world did I manage to miss you? My fault, I’m sure.”
“It would be kind of you,” said Carolyn Stokes with reserve, “to put us
in the right direction for our hotel.”
“But, of course, I’ll see you back there with the greatest pleasure.
Unless you like to allow me, even now, to show you round the town. As a
matter of fact, the hotel is just round the corner. There’s the
Garibaldi statue.”
“I am somewhat fatigued,” she said, “and I would prefer to return.”
“And you?” he said, turning to me.
“There has been a mistake made,” I answered resolutely. “We took you for
somebody else. You must allow us to close the acquaintance here and
now.”
“No idea I had a double,” he remarked. “This matter must be looked into
or complications may ensue.”
“We jumped to the conclusion that you were the son of the lady you are
travelling with.”
“I am,” he answered. Carolyn Stokes and I began to talk together; he
appeared to do his best to understand us, but presently gave up the
attempt and led the way to the hotel. There in the entrance hall he
spoke again.
“So it was because I showed some attention to my dear mother that you
thought I was a courier.”
We interrupted, and endeavoured once more to explain.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Had an idea this was going to be quite a pleasant
friendship. Goodbye.”
I kept awake half that night making my plans. But in the morning fresh
English visitors—more titles—had arrived, and some of them knew him, and
they surrounded him, and the girls made a fuss of him, and there was no
chance of my getting near. A letter came for me from Venice saying that
the writer would be in Milan on Wednesday. “Yours with affectionate
regards, P. A. C.”
I have now to rely upon my tact and my industry and my own bright,
intelligent young mind to assist me in marrying Mr. Peter A. Chasemore.