I
|PONTYCROFT was really, as men go, a tallish man,--above, at any rate,
what they call the medium height,--say five feet ten or eleven. But
seated, like a Turk or a tailor--as he was seated now on the lawn of
Villa Santa Cecilia, and as it was very much his ridiculous custom to
sit,--with his head sunk forward and his legs curled up beneath him,
making a mere torso of himself, he left you rather with an impression
of him as short. That same sunken head, by the by, was a somewhat
noticeable head; noticeably big; covered by a thick growth,
close-cropped, of fawn-coloured hair; broad, with heavy bumps over the
thick fawn-coloured eyebrows; the forehead traversed by many wrinkles,
vertical and horizontal, deep almost as if they had been scored with a
knife. It was a white forehead, but the face below, abruptly from the
hat-line, was as brown as sun and open air could burn it, red-brown and
lean, showing its sub-structure of bone: not by any means a
handsome face; nay, with its short nose, perilously near a snub, its
forward-thrust chin, deeply-cleft in the middle, its big mouth and the
short fawn-coloured moustache that bristled on the lip, decidedly a
plain face; yet decidedly too, somehow, a distinguished, very
decidedly a pleasing face--shrewd, humorous, friendly; capable,
trustworthy--lighted by grey eyes that seemed always to be smiling.
They were certainly smiling at this moment, as he looked off towards
Florence, (where it lay under a thin drift of pearl-dust in the
sun-filled valley), and spoke in his smiling masculine voice.
“Up at the villa--down in the city,” he said. “I never _could_
sympathise with that Italian person of quality. Surely, it's a thousand
times jollier to be up at the villa. Then one can look down upon the
city, and admire it as a feature of the landscape, and thank goodness
one isn't there.”
Ruth's eyes (with the red glint in them) laughed at him. She sat leaning
back on a rustic bench, a few yards away, under a mighty ilex. She
wore a frock of pale green muslin, and her garden-hat had fallen on the
ground beside her, so that what breeze there was could make free with
her hair.
“You are not an Italian person of quality, you see,” she said. “You
are a beef-eating Britisher, and retain a barbaric fondness for the
greenwood tree. You are like Peter Bell, who never felt the witchery
of the soft blue sky. You have never felt the witchery of brick and
mortar.”
Pontycroft, puffing his cigarette, regarded her through the smoke with a
feint of thoughtful curiosity.
“The worst thing about the young people of your generation,” he
remarked, assuming the tone of one criticising from an altitude, “is
that you have no conversation. Talk, among you, consists exclusively
of personalities--gossip or chaff. Now, I was on the point of drawing
a really rather neat little philosophical analogy; and you, instead
of playing flint to steel, instead of encouraging me with a show of
intelligent interest, check my inspiration with idle, personal chaff.
Still, hatless young girls in greenery-whitery frocks, if they have
plenty of reddish hair, add a very effective note to the foreground of a
garden; and I suppose one should be content with them as they are.”
Ruth ostentatiously “composed a face,” bending her head at the angle of
intentness, lifting her eyebrows, making her eyes big and rapt.
“There,” she said, taking a deep breath, “I hope _that_ is a show
of intelligent interest. Let me hear your really rather neat little
philosophical analogy.”
“No,” said Pontycroft, with a melancholy shake of the head, “that is
only a show of the irreverence of youth for age. What is the fun of
my being a hundred years your elder, if you are not to treat me with
proportionate respect? And as for my analogy (which, perhaps, on second
thoughts, is not so neat as I fancied), if I give it utterance, I shall
do so simply for the sake of clarifying it to myself. It has reference
to the everlasting problem of evil. Human life is like a city; and a
city seen from a distance”--he waved his cigarette towards Florence--“is
like human life taken as a whole. Taken piecemeal, bit by bit, as it
passes, life dismays us, and terribly tries our faith, by the Evil it
presents: the pain, disease, foul play, inequalities, injustices, what
you will: just as a city, when we are in its streets, revolts us with
its dirt, decay, squalor, stagnant air, noise, confusion, and its sordid
population. But just as the city seen from a distance, just as Florence
seen from here, loses all its piecemeal ugliness, and melts into a
beautiful and harmonious unity, so human life viewed as a whole....
Well, you have my analogy--which, perhaps, after all, is really rather
banal. Ah me, I wish I could marry you off. Why do you so systematically
refuse all the brilliant offers that I so tirelessly contrive for you?”
But Ruth seemed not to have heard his question, though he underlined it
by looking up at her with a frown of grave anxiety.
“Unfortunately for us human beings,” she said, “no one has yet invented
a process by which we can _live_ our life as a whole. It's all very well
to talk of viewing it, but we have to _live_ it; and we have to live it
piecemeal, bit by bit.”
“Well,” demanded Pontycroft, cheerfully inconsequent, “what can we
ask better? Given health, wealth, and a little wisdom, it's extremely
pleasant to live our life piecemeal. It's extremely pleasant to take it
bit by bit, when the bits are sweet. And what, for instance, could be
a sweeter bit than this?” His lean brown hand described a comprehensive
circle. “A bright, crisp, cool, warm September morning; a big beautiful
garden, full of fragrant airs; Italian sunshine, and the shade of
ilexes; oleanders in blossom; cool turf to lie on, and a fountain
tinkling cool music near at hand; then, beyond there, certainly the
loveliest prospect in the world to feed our eyes--Val d'Arno, with
its olive-covered hills, its cypresses, its white-walled villas, and
Florence shining like a cut gem in the midst. Add good tobacco to smoke,
and a simple child in white-green muslin, with plenty of reddish hair,
to try one's analogies upon. What could man wish better? Why don't you
get married? Why do you so perversely reject all the eligible suitors
that I trot out for your inspection?”
Ruth's eyes laughed at him again. It was a laugh of frank amusement,
but I think there was something dangerous in it too, a quick flash of
mockery, even of menace and defiance.
“Among the train there is a swain I dearly lo' mysel',” she lightly
sang, her head thrown back. “But you've never trotted _him_ out. I don't
get married'--detestable expression--because the only man I've ever
seriously cared for has never asked me.” She sighed--regretfully,
resignedly; and made him a comical little face.
Pontycroft studied her for a moment. Then, “Ho!” he scoffed. “A good
job, too. I wasn't aware that you'd ever seriously cared for any one;
but if you have--believe me, he's the last man living you should think
of tying up with. The people we care for in our calf-period are always
the wrong people.”
Ruth raised her eyebrows. “Calf-period? How pretty--but how sadly
misapplied. I'm twenty-four years old. Besides, the person I care for is
the right person, the rightest of all right persons, absolutely the one
rightest person in the world.”
“Who is he?” Pontycroft asked carelessly, lighting a fresh cigarette.
Still again Ruth's eyes laughed at him. “What's his name and where's his
hame I dinna care to tell,” again she sang.
“Pooh!” said Pontycroft, blowing the subject from him in a whiff of
smoke. “He's a baseless fabrication. He's a herring you've just invented
to draw across the trail of my inquiries. But even if he were authentic,
he wouldn't matter, since he's well-advised enough not to sue for your
hand. Have you ever heard of a man called Bertrando Bertrandoni?”
“Bertrando Bertrandoni--Phoebus! what a name!” laughed Ruth.
“Yes,” assented Pontycroft, “it's a trifle cumbrous, also perhaps a
trifle flamboyant. So his English friends (he was educated in England,
and you'd never know he wasn't English) have docked it to simple
Bertram. Have you ever heard of him?”
“I don't think so,” said Ruth, shaking her head.
“And yet he's a pretty well-known man,” said Pontycroft. “He
writes--every now and then you'll see an article of his in one of the
reviews. He paints, too--you'll see his pictures at the Salon; and plays
the fiddle, and sings. A jack-of-many-trades, but, by exception, really
rather a dab at 'em all. A sportsman besides--goes in for yachtin',
huntin', fencin'. But over and above all that, a thorough good sort and
a most amusing companion--a fellow who can talk, a fellow who's curious
about things. Finally, a Serene and Semi-Royal Highness.”
“Oh?” questioned Ruth, wondering.
“Ah,” said Pontycroft, “you prick up your pretty ears. Yes, a Serene and
Semi-Royal Highness. Has it ever struck you how chuckle-headed--saving
their respect--our ancestors were? I suppose they drank the wrong sort
of tea. Anyhow, they were mistaken about nearly everything, and most of
their mistakes they elevated to the dignity of maxims. Now, for example,
they had a maxim about Silence being golden, and another about Curiosity
being a vice. It's pitiful to think of the enormous number of more
or less tedious anecdotes they laboriously imagined to illustrate and
enforce those two profound untruths. Silence golden? My dear, silence is
simply piggish. Your silent man is simply a monstrous Egotist, who,
in what should be the reciprocal game of conversation, takes without
giving--allows himself to be entertained, perhaps enriched, at his
interlocuter's expense, and is too soddenly self-complacent to feel
that he owes anything in return. Oh, I know, you'll plead shyness for
him--you'll tell me he doesn't speak because he's shy. In a certain
number of cases, I grant, that is the fact. But what then? Why,
shyness is Egotism multiplied by itself. Your shy person is a person
so sublimely (or infernally) conscious of his own existence and his own
importance, so penetrated by the conviction that he is the centre of
the Universe and that all eyes are fixed upon him, and therewith so
concerned about the effect he may produce, the figure he may cut, that
he dare not move lest he shouldn't produce an heroic effect or cut an
Olympian figure. And then, curiosity! A vice? Look here. You are born,
with eyes, ears, and a brain, into a world that God created. You
have eyes, ears, and a brain, and all round you is a world that God
created--and yet you are not curious about it. A world that God created,
and that man, your duplicate man, lives in; a world in which everything
counts, small things as well as big things--the farthest planet and the
trifling-est affair of your next-door neighbour, the course of Empire
and the price of figs. But no--God's world, man's life--they leave you
cold, they fail to interest you; you glance indifferently at them, they
hardly seem worth your serious attention, you shrug and turn away.
'Tis a world that God created, and you treat it as if it were a child's
mud-pie! Good heavens! And the worst of it is that the people who do
that are mightily proud of themselves in their smug fashion. Curiosity
is a vice and a weakness; they are above it. My sweet child, no single
good thing has ever happened to mankind, no single forward step has ever
been taken in what they call human progress, but it has been primarily
due to some one's 'curiosity.'” He brought the word out with a flourish,
making it big. Then he lay back, and puffed hard at his cigarette.
“Go on,” urged Ruth demurely. “Please don't stop. I like half-truths,
and as for quarter-truths, I perfectly adore them.”
“Bertram,” said Pontycroft, “is a fellow who can talk, and a fellow
who's curious about things.”
“I see,” said Ruth. “And yet,” she reflected, as one trying to fit
together incompatible ideas, “I think you let fall something about his
being a Serene and Semi-Royal Highness.”
“My dear,” Pontycroft instructed her, “there are intelligent
individuals in all walks of life. There are intelligent princes,
there are even intelligent scientific persons. The Bertrandoni are the
legitimate grand-dukes of Altronde, the old original dynasty. They
were 'hurled from the throne,' I don't know how many years ago, in a
revolution, and the actual reigning family, the Ceresini, have been in
possession ever since. But Bertram's father is the Pretender. He calls
himself the Duke of Oltramare, and lives in Paris--lives there, I grieve
to state, in the full Parisian sense--is a professed _viveur_. I met
him once, a handsome old boy, military-looking, red-faced, with a white
moustache and imperial, and a genially wicked eye. Anyhow, there's one
thing to his credit--he had Bertram educated at Harrow and Cambridge,
instead of at one of these soul-destroying Continental universities.
He and his Duchess never meet. She and Bertram are supposed to live in
Venice, at the palace of the family, Cà Bertrandoni, though as a matter
of fact you'll rarely find either of them at home. She spends most of
her time in Austria, where she was born--a Wohenhoffen, if you please;
there's no better blood. And Bertram is generally at the other end
of the earth--familiarizing himself with the domestic manners of the
Annamites, or the religious practices of the Patagonians. However, I
believe lately he's dropped that sort of thing--given up travelling and
settled down.”
“This is palpitatingly interesting,” said Ruth. “Is it all apropos of
boots?”
Pontycroft put on his hat, and stood up.
“It's apropos,” he answered, “of your immortal welfare. I had a note
from Bertram this morning to say he was in Florence, no farther away
than that. I'm going down now to call on him, and I'll probably bring
him back to luncheon. So tell Lucilla to have a plate laid for him. Also
put on your best bib and tucker, and try to behave as nicely as you can.
For if you should impress him favourably.... Ah me, I wish I could marry
you off.”
“Ah me, I wish you could--to the man I care for,” responded Ruth, with
dreamy eyes, and wistfulness real or feigned.