Up at the castle, in her rose-and-white boudoir, Beatrice was writing a
letter to a friend in England.
“Villa Floriano,” she wrote, among other words, “has been let to an
Englishman--a youngish, presentable-looking creature, in a dinner
jacket, with a tongue in his head, and an indulgent eye for
Nature--named Peter Marchdale. Do you happen by any chance to know who
he is, or anything about him?”
V
Peter very likely slept but little, that first night at the villa; and
more than once, I fancy, he repeated to his pillow his pious ejaculation
of the afternoon: “What luck! What supernatural luck!” He was up, in
any case, at an unconscionable hour next morning, up, and down in his
garden.
“It really is a surprisingly jolly garden,” he confessed. “The agent was
guiltless of exaggeration, and the photographs were not the perjuries
one feared.”
There were some fine old trees, lindens, acacias, chestnuts, a
flat-topped Lombardy pine, a darkling ilex, besides the willow that
overhung the river, and the poplars that stiffly stood along its border.
Then there was the peacock-blue river itself, dancing and singing as it
sped away, with a thousand diamonds flashing on its surface--floating,
sinking, rising--where the sun caught its ripples. There were some
charming bits of greensward. There was a fountain, plashing melodious
coolness, in a nimbus of spray which the sun touched to rainbow
pinks and yellows. There were vivid parterres of flowers, begonia and
geranium. There were oleanders, with their heady southern perfume; there
were pomegranate-blossoms, like knots of scarlet crepe; there were
white carnations, sweet-peas, heliotrope, mignonette; there were endless
roses. And there were birds, birds, birds. Everywhere you heard their
joyous piping, the busy flutter of their wings. There were goldfinches,
blackbirds, thrushes, with their young--the plumpest, clumsiest,
ruffle-feathered little blunderers, at the age ingrat, just beginning to
fly, a terrible anxiety to their parents--and there were also (I regret
to own) a good many rowdy sparrows. There were bees and bumblebees;
there were brilliant, dangerous-looking dragonflies; there were
butterflies, blue ones and white ones, fluttering in couples; there were
also (I am afraid) a good many gadflies--but che volete? Who minds
a gadfly or two in Italy? On the other side of the house there were
fig-trees and peach-trees, and artichokes holding their heads high in
rigid rows; and a vine, heavy with great clusters of yellow grapes, was
festooned upon the northern wall.
The morning air was ineffably sweet and keen--penetrant, tonic, with
moist, racy smells, the smell of the good brown earth, the smell of
green things and growing things. The dew was spread over the grass like
a veil of silver gossamer, spangled with crystals. The friendly country
westward, vineyards and white villas, laughed in the sun at the Gnisi,
sulking black in shadow to the east. The lake lay deep and still, a
dark sapphire. And away at the valley's end, Monte Sfiorito, always
insubstantial-seeming, showed pale blue-grey, upon a sky in which still
lingered some of the flush of dawn.
It was a surprisingly jolly garden, true enough. But though Peter
remained in it all day long--though he haunted the riverside, and cast
a million desirous glances, between the trees, and up the lawns, towards
Castel Ventirose--he enjoyed no briefest vision of the Duchessa di
Santangiolo.
Nor the next day; nor the next.
“Why does n't that old dowager ever come down and look after her river?”
he asked Marietta. “For all the attention she gives it, the water might
be undermining her property on both sides.”
“That old dowager--?” repeated Marietta, blank.
“That old widow woman--my landlady--the Duchessa Vedova di Santangiolo.”
“She is not very old--only twenty-six, twenty-seven,” said Marietta.
“Don't try to persuade me that she is n't old enough to know better,”
retorted Peter, sternly.
“But she has her guards, her keepers, to look after her property,” said
Marietta.
“Guards and keepers are mere mercenaries. If you want a thing well done,
you should do it yourself,” said Peter, with gloomy sententiousness.
On Sunday he went to the little grey rococo parish church. There were
two Masses, one at eight o'clock, one at ten--and the church was quite
a mile from Villa Floriano, and up a hill; and the Italian sun was
hot--but the devoted young man went to both.
The Duchessa was at neither.
“What does she think will become of her immortal soul?” he asked
Marietta.
On Monday he went to the pink-stuccoed village post-office.
Before the post-office door a smart little victoria, with a pair
of sprightly, fine-limbed French bays, was drawn up, ducal coronets
emblazoned on its panels.
Peter's heart began to beat.
And while he was hesitating on the doorstep, the door opened, and
the Duchessa came forth--tall, sumptuous, in white, with a wonderful
black-plumed hat, and a wonderful white-frilled sunshade. She was
followed by a young girl--a pretty, dark-complexioned girl, of fourteen,
fifteen perhaps, with pleasant brown eyes (that lucent Italian brown),
and in her cheeks a pleasant hint of red (that covert Italian red, which
seems to glow through the thinnest film of satin).
Peter bowed, standing aside to let them pass.
But when he looked up, the Duchessa had stopped, and was smiling on him.
His heart beat harder.
“A lovely day,” said the Duchessa.
“Delightful,” agreed Peter, between two heart-beats.--Yet he looked, in
his grey flannels, with his straw-hat and his eyeglass, with his lean
face, his even colour, his slightly supercilious moustaches--he looked a
very embodiment of cool-blooded English equanimity.
“A trifle warm, perhaps?” the Duchessa suggested, with her air of polite
(or was it in some part humorous?) readiness to defer to his opinion.
“But surely,” suggested he, “in Italy, in summer, it is its bounden duty
to be a trifle warm?”
The Duchessa smiled.
“You like it? So do I. But what the country really needs is rain.”
“Then let us hope,” said he, “that the country's real needs may remain
unsatisfied.”
The Duchessa tittered.
“Think of the poor farmers,” she said reproachfully.
“It's vain to think of them,” he answered. “'T is an ascertained fact
that no condition of the weather ever contents the farmers.”
The Duchessa laughed.
“Ah, well,” she consented, “then I 'll join in your hope that the fine
weather may last. I--I trust,” she was so good as to add, “that you're
not entirely uncomfortable at Villa Floriano?”
“I dare n't allow myself to speak of Villa Floriano,” he replied. “I
should become dithyrambic. It's too adorable.”
“It has a pretty garden, and--I remember--you admired the view,” the
Duchessa said. “And that old Marietta? I trust she does for you fairly
well?” Her raised eyebrows expressed benevolent (or was it in some part
humorous?) concern.
“She does for me to perfection. That old Marietta is a priceless old
jewel,” Peter vowed.
“A good cook?” questioned the Duchessa.
“A good cook--but also a counsellor and friend. And with a flow of
language!”
The Duchessa laughed again.
“Oh, these Lombard peasant women. They are untiring chatterers.”
“I 'm not sure,” Peter felt himself in justice bound to confess, “that
Marietta is n't equally untiring as a listener. In fact, there's only
one respect in which she has disappointed me.”
“Oh--?” said the Duchessa. And her raised eyebrows demanded particulars.
“She swears she does n't wear a dagger in her garter--has never heard of
such a practice,” Peter explained. “And now,” he whispered to his soul,
“we 'll see whether our landlady is up in modern literature.”
Still again the Duchessa laughed. And, apparently, she was up in modern
literature. At any rate--
“Those are Lombard country-girls along the coast,” she reminded him.
“We are peaceful inland folk, miles from the sea. But you had best be on
your guard, none the less.” She shook her head, in warning. “Through all
this country-side that old Marietta is reputed to be a witch.”
“If she's a witch,” said Peter, undismayed, “her usefulness will be
doubled. I shall put her to the test directly I get home.”
“Sprinkle her with holy water?” laughed the Duchessa. “Have a care. If
she should turn into a black cat, and fly away on a broomstick, you'd
never forgive yourself.”
Wherewith she swept on to her carriage, followed by her young companion.
The sprightly French bays tossed their heads, making the harness tinkle.
The footman mounted the box. The carriage rolled away.
But Peter remained for quite a minute motionless on the door-step,
gazing, bemused, down the long, straight, improbable village street,
with its poplars, its bridge, its ancient stone cross, its irregular
pink and yellow houses--as improbable as a street in opera-bouffe. A
thin cloud of dust floated after the carriage, a thin screen of white
dust, which, in the sun, looked like a fume of silver.
“I think I could put my finger on a witch worth two of Marietta,” he
said, in the end. “And thus we see,” he added, struck by something
perhaps not altogether novel in his own reflection, “how the primary
emotions, being perennial, tend to express themselves in perennial
formulae.”