My Friend Prospero Part 15

"I advise you to have more," said Lady Blanchemain, with a smile that seemed occult.

And now her carriage entered the village, and she put him down at the telegraph office.

"Don't wait," said John. "The walk from here to the Castle is nothing, and it would take you out of your way."

"Well, good-bye, then," said she. "And cultivate more faith in oracles--when they're auspicious."

Alone, she drew from some recondite fold of her many draperies a letter, an unsealed letter, which she opened, spread out, and proceeded to read.

It was a long letter in her ladys.h.i.+p's own handsome, high-bred, old-fas.h.i.+oned handwriting; and it was addressed to Messrs. Farrow, Bernscot, and Tisdale, Solicitors, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London. She read it twice through, and at last (with a smile that seemed occult) restored it to its envelope. "Stop at the Post Office," she said to her coachman, as they entered Roccadoro; and to her footman, giving him the letter, "Have that registered, please."

Annunziata lay in wait for John in the garden. She ran up, and seized him by the arm. Then, skipping beside him, as he walked on, "Who was she? Where did she come from? Where did she take you? Whom was the telegram from?" she demanded in a breath, nestling her curls against his coat-sleeve.

"_Piano, piano_," remonstrated John. "One question at a time. Now, begin again."

"Whom was the telegram from?" she obeyed, beginning at the end.

"Ah," said he, "the telegram was from _my_ friend Prospero. He's coming here to-morrow. We must ask your uncle whether he can give him a bed."

"And the old lady?" pursued Annunziata. "Who was she?"

"The old lady was my fairy G.o.dmother," said John, building better than he knew.

PART FOURTH

I

Pacing together backwards and forwards, as they talked, John and his friend Winthorpe presented a striking and perhaps interesting contrast.

John was tall, but Winthorpe seemed a good deal taller--though, (trifles in these matters looming so large), had actual measurements been taken, I dare say half an inch would have covered the difference. John was lean and sinewy, but rounded off at the joints, and of a pliant carriage, so that it never occurred to you to think of him as _thin_. Winthorpe's spare figure, spare and angular, with its greater height, held unswervingly to the plane of the perpendicular, appeared absolutely to be constructed of nothing but bone and tendon. John's head, with its yellow hair, its curly beard verging towards red, its pink skin, and blue eyes full of laughter, might have served a painter as a model for the head of Mirth. Winthorpe's,--with brown hair cropped close, and showing the white of the scalp; clean-shaven, but of a steely tint where the razor had pa.s.sed; with a marked jaw-bone and a salient square chin; with a high-bridged determined nose, and a white forehead rising vertical over thick black eyebrows, and rather deep-set grey eyes,--well, clap a steeple-crowned hat upon it, and you could have posed him for one of his own Puritan ancestors. The very clothes of the men carried on their unlikeness,--John's loose blue flannels and red sailor's knot, careless-seeming, but smart in their effect, and showing him careful in a fas.h.i.+on of his own; Winthorpe's black tie and dark tweeds, as correct as Savile Row could turn them out, yet somehow, by the way he wore them, proclaiming him immediately a man who never gave two thoughts to his dress. If, however, Winthorpe's face was the face of a Puritan, it was the face of a Puritan with a sense of humour--the lines about the mouth were clearly the footprints of smiles. It seemed the face of a sensitive Puritan, as well, and (maugre that high-bridged nose) of a gentle--the light in his clear grey eyes was a kindly and gentle light. After all, Governor Bradford, as his writings show,--though he tried hard, perhaps, not to let them show it--was a Puritan with a sense of humour; John Alden and Priscilla were surely sensitive and gentle: and Winthorpe was descended from Governor Bradford, and from John Alden and Priscilla. The two friends walked backwards and forwards in the great open s.p.a.ce before the Castle, and talked. They had not met for nearly two years, and had plenty to talk about.

II

Seated at one of the open windows of the pavilion beyond the clock, Maria Dolores (in a pale green confection of I know not what airy, filmy tissue) looked down, and somewhat vaguely watched them,--herself concealed by the netted curtain, which, according to Italian usage, was hung across the cas.e.m.e.nt, to mitigate the heat and shut out insects. She watched them at first vaguely, and only from time to time, for the rest going on with some needlework she had in her lap. But by-and-by she dropped her needlework altogether, and her watching became continuous and absorbed.

"What a singular-looking man!" she thought, studying Winthorpe. "What an ascetic-looking man! He looks like an early Christian martyr. He looks like a priest. I believe he _is_ a priest. English priests," she remembered, "when they travel, often dress as laymen. Yes, he is a priest, and a terribly austere one--I shouldn't like to go to him for confession. But in spite of his austerity, he seems to be extraordinarily happy about something just at present. That light in his eyes,--it is almost a light of ecstasy. It is a light I have never seen in any eyes, save those of priests and nuns."

Winthorpe, while that "almost ecstatic" light shone in his eyes, had been speaking.

Now, as he paused, John, with a glance of gay astonishment, halted, and turned so as to face him. John's lips moved, and it was perfectly plain that he was exclaiming, delightedly, "Really? _Really_?"

Winthorpe joyously nodded: whereupon John held out both hands, got hold of his friend's, and, his pink face jubilant, shook them with tremendous heartiness.

"The priest has received advancement--he is probably to be made a bishop," inferred Maria Dolores; "and Signor Prospero is congratulating him."

The men resumed their walk; but for quite a minute John kept his hand on Winthorpe's shoulder, and again and again gently patted it, murmuring, "I am so glad, so immensely glad." Maria Dolores was quite sure that this was what he murmured, for, though no word could reach her, John's beaming face spoke louder than his voice.

At last John let his hand drop, and, eyebrows raised a little, asked a question.

"But how did it happen? But tell me all about it," was what he seemed to say.

And Winthorpe (always with something of that ecstatic light in his eyes) proceeded to answer. But it was a longish story, and lasted through half a dozen of their forward and backward ambulations. Apparently, furthermore, it was a story which, as it developed, became less and less agreeable to the mind of John; for his face, at first all awake with interest, all aglow with pleasure, gradually sobered, gradually darkened, took on a frown, expressed dissent, expressed disapprobation, till, finally, with an impatient movement, he interrupted, and began--speaking rapidly, heatedly--to protest, to remonstrate.

"Ah," thought Maria Dolores, "the priest is to be made a bishop, sure enough,--but a missionary bishop. It isn't for nothing that he looks like an early Christian martyr. He is going to some outlandish, savage part of the world, where he will be murdered by the natives, or die of fever or loneliness. He is a man who has listened to the Counsels of Perfection. But his unascetic friend Prospero (one would say June remonstrating with December) can't bring himself to like it."

John remonstrated, protested, argued. Winthorpe, calmly, smilingly, restated his purpose and his motives. John pleaded, implored, appealed (so the watcher read his gesture) to earth, to heaven. Winthorpe took his arm, and calmly, smilingly, tried to soothe, tried to convince him.

John drew his arm free, and, employing it to add force and persuasiveness to his speech, renewed his arguments, pointed out how unnecessary, inhuman, impossible the whole thing was. "It's monstrous.

It's against all nature. There's no _reason_ in it. What does it _rhyme_ with? It's wilfully going out of your way to seek, to create, wretchedness. My mind simply refuses to accept it." It was as if Maria Dolores could hear the words. But Winthorpe, calm and smiling, would not be moved. John shook his head, muttered, shrugged his shoulders, threw up his hands, muttered again. "Was ever such pig-headed obstinacy! Was ever such arbitrary, voluntary blindness! I give you up, for a perverse, a triple-pated madman!" And so, John muttering and frowning, Winthorpe serenely smiling, reiterating, they pa.s.sed round the corner of the Castle buildings, and were lost to Maria Dolores' view.

III

That afternoon, seated on the moss, under a tall eucalyptus tree near to Frau Brandt's pavilion, Maria Dolores received a visit from Annunziata.

Annunziata's pale little face was paler, her big grave eyes were graver, even than their wont. She nodded her head, slowly, portentously; and her glance was heavy with significance.

Maria Dolores smiled. "What is the matter?" she cheerfully inquired.

"Ah," sighed Annunziata, deeply, with another portentous head-shake, "I wish I knew."

Maria Dolores laughed. "Sit down," she suggested, making room beside her on the moss, "and try to think."

Annunziata sat down, curled herself up. "Something has happened to Prospero," she said, _de profundis_.

"Oh?" asked Maria Dolores. "What?" She seemed heartlessly cheerful, and even rather amused.

"Ah," sighed Annunziata, "that is what I wish I knew. He has had a friend to pa.s.s the day with him."

"Yes?" said Maria Dolores. "I expect I saw his friend walking with him this morning?"

"_Gia_," said Annunziata. "They have been walking about all day. _His_ friend Prospero he calls him. But he doesn't look very prosperous. He looks like a slate-pencil. He is long and thin, and dark and cold, and hard, just like a slate-pencil. He would not stay the night, though we had a bed prepared for him. He is going to Rome, and Prospero has driven him to the railway station at Cortello. I hate him," wound up Annunziata, simply.

"Mercy!" exclaimed Maria Dolores, opening her eyes. "Why do you hate him?"

"Because he must have said or done something very unkind to Prospero,"

answered Annunziata. "Oh, you should see him. He is so sad--so sad and so angry. He keeps scowling, and shaking his head, and saying things in English, which I cannot understand, but I am sure they are sad things and angry things. And he would not eat any dinner,--no, not that much,"