Robert Kimberly Part 7

"It is a duplicate of a dial that Robert fancied in the garden of the Kimberly villa on Lago Maggiore," Dolly explained. "Come this way, I want you to see the lake and the terrace."

From the terrace they looked back again at the house. Well-placed windows and ample verandas afforded views in every direction of the surrounding country. Retracing their way to the main entrance, they ascended a broad flight of stone steps and entered the house itself.

Following Dolly into the hall, Alice saw a chamber almost severe in s.p.a.ciousness and still somewhat untamed in its oak ruggedness. But glimpses into the apartments opening off it were delightfully satisfying.

They peeped into the dining-room as they pa.s.sed. It was an old-day room, heavily beamed in gloomy oak, with a ma.s.sive round table and high chairs. The room filled the whole southern exposure of its wing and at one end Alice saw a fireplace above which hung a great Dutch mirror framed in heavy seventeenth-century style. Dolly pointed to it: "It is our sole heirloom, and Robert won't change it from the fireplace. The Kimberly mirror, we call it--from Holland with our first Kimberly. The oak in this room is good."

Taken as a whole, however, Dolly frankly considered The Towers too evidently suggestive of the old-fas.h.i.+oned. This she satisfactorily accounted for by the fact that the house lacked the magic of a woman's presence.

Alice, walking with her, slowly and critically, found nowhere any discordant notes. The carpets offered the delicate restraints of Eastern fancy, and the wall pictures, seen in pa.s.sing, invited more leisurely inspection.

There was here something in marble, something there Oriental, but nowhere were effects confused, and they had been subdued until consciousness of their art was not aroused.

Alice, sensitive to indefinable impressions, had never seen anything comparable to what she now saw, and an interior so restful should have put her at ease.

Yet the first pleasing breath in this atmosphere brought with it something, she could not have told what, of uneasiness, and it was of this that she was vaguely conscious, as Dolly questioned the servant that met them.

"Is Mr. De Castro here yet?" she asked.

"Yes, Mrs. De Castro. He is with Mr. Kimberly. I think they are in the garden."

"Tell them we are here. We will go up and speak to Uncle John."

They were at the foot of the stairs: "Sha'n't I wait for you?" suggested Alice.

"By no means. Come with me. He is really the head of the family, you know," Dolly added in an undertone, "and mustn't be slighted."

Alice, amused at the importance placed upon the situation, smiled at Dolly's earnestness. As she ascended the stairs with her hostess, a little wave of self-consciousness swept over her.

On the second floor was a long gallery opening at the farther end upon a western belvedere, lighted just then by the sun. The effect of the room, confusing at first in its arrangement, was, in fact, that of a wide and irregular reception hall for the apartments opening on the second floor. At the moment the two women reached the archway, a man walked in at the farther end from the terrace.

"There is Robert, now!" Dolly exclaimed. He was opening the door of a room near at hand when he saw his sister with Alice, and came forward to meet them. As he did so, a door mid-way down the hall opened and a man clad in a black habit crossed between Kimberly and Alice.

"That is Francis, who takes care of Uncle John," said Dolly. Francis, walked toward the balcony without seeing the visitors, but his ear caught the tones of Dolly's voice and she waved a hand at him as he turned his head. He paused to bow and continued his way through a balcony door.

As Kimberly came forward his face was so nearly without a smile that Alice for a moment was chilled.

"I brought Mrs. MacBirney in to see Uncle John a moment, Robert. How are you?" Dolly asked.

"Thank you, very well. And it is a pleasure to see Mrs. MacBirney, Dolly."

He looked into Alice's eyes as he spoke. She thanked him, simply.

Dolly made a remark but Alice did not catch it. In some confusion of thought she was absurdly conscious that Kimberly was looking at her and that his eyes were gray, that he wore a suit of gray and that she now, exchanging compliments with him, was clad in lavender. The three talked together for some moments. Yet something formal remained in Kimberly's manner and Alice was already the least bit on the defensive.

She was, at any rate, glad to feel that her motoring rig would bear inspection, for it seemed as if his eyes, without offensively appearing to do so, took in the slightest detail of her appearance. His words were of a piece with his manner. They were agreeable, but either what he said lacked enthusiasm or preoccupation clouded his efforts to be cordial.

"They told us," said Dolly, at length, "you were in the garden."

"Arthur is down there somewhere," returned Kimberly. "We will go this way for Uncle John," he added. "Francis is giving him an airing."

They walked out to the belvedere. Facing the sunset, Alice saw in an invalid chair an old man with a wrinkled white face. Dolly, hastening forward, greeted him in elevated tones. Kimberly turned to Alice with a suggestion of humor as they waited a little way from Dolly's hand. "My sister, curiously enough," said he, "always forgets that Uncle John is _not_ deaf. And he doesn't like it a bit."

"Many people instinctively speak louder to invalids," said Alice. Uncle John's eyes turned slowly toward Alice as he heard her voice. Dolly, evidently, was referring to her, and beckoned her to come nearer. Alice saw the old man looking at her with the slow care of the paralytic--of one who has learned to distrust his physical faculties. Alice disliked his eyes. He tried to rise, but Dolly frowned on his attempt: it looked like a failure, anyway, and he greeted Alice from his chair.

"You are getting altogether too spry, Uncle John," cried Dolly.

His eyes turned slowly from Alice's face to Dolly's and he looked at his talkative niece quizzically: "Am I?" Then, with the mildly suspicious smile on his face, his eyes returned to Alice. Kimberly watched his uncle.

"They say you want to ride horseback," continued Dolly, jocularly. He looked at her again: "Do they?" Then he looked back at Alice.

Kimberly, his hands half-way in the pockets of his sack-coat, turned in protest: "I think you two go through this every time you come over, Dolly." Dolly waved her hand with a laugh. Uncle John this time did not even take the trouble to look around. He continued to smile at Alice even while he returned to Robert his non-committal: "Do we?"

Alice felt desirous of edging away from Uncle John's kind of Kimberly eyes. "You ought to get better here very fast, Mr. Kimberly," she said to him briskly. "This lovely prospect!" she exclaimed, looking about her. "And in every direction."

"It is pretty toward the lake," Robert volunteered, knowing that Uncle John would merely look at Alice without response.

He led the way as he spoke toward the mirrored sheet of water and, as Alice came to his side, pointed out the features of the landscape.

Dolly sat a moment with Uncle John and joined Kimberly and Alice as they walked on.

They encountered the attendant, Brother Francis, who had retreated as far as he could from the visitors. Dolly, greeting him warmly, turned to Alice. "Mrs. MacBirney, this is Brother Francis who takes care--and such excellent care!--of Uncle John."

Brother Francis's features were spare. His slender nose emphasized the strength of his face. But if his expression at the moment was sober, and his dark eyes looked as if his thoughts might be away, they were kindly.

His eyes, too, fell almost at the instant Dolly spoke and he only bowed his greeting to Alice. But with Francis a bow was everything. Whether he welcomed, tolerated, or disapproved, his bow clearly and sufficiently signified.

His greeting of Alice expressed deference and sincerity. But there was even more in it--something of the sensible att.i.tude of a gentleman who, in meeting a lady in pa.s.sing, and being himself an attendant, desires to be so considered and seeks with his greeting to dismiss himself from the situation. To this end, however, Francis's efforts were unsuccessful.

"He is the most modest man in the world," murmured Dolly, in concluding a eulogium, delivered to Alice almost in the poor Brother's face.

"Then why not spare his feelings?" suggested Kimberly.

"Because I don't believe in hiding a light under a bushel," returned Dolly, vigorously. "There is so little modesty left nowadays----"

"That you want to be rid of what there is," suggested Kimberly.

"That when I find it I think it a duty to recognize it," Dolly persisted.

Brother Francis maintained his composure as well as he could. Indeed, self-consciousness seemed quite lacking in him. "Surely," he smiled, bowing again, "Madame De Castro has a good heart. That," he added to Alice, italicizing his words with an expressive forefinger, "is the real secret. But I see danger even if one _should_ possess a gift so precious as modesty," he continued, raising his finger this time in mild admonition; "when you--how do you say in English--'trot out' the modesty and set it up to look at"--Francis's large eyes grew luminous in pantomime--"the first thing you know, pff! Where is it? You search."

Brother Francis beat the skirt of his black gown with his hands, and shook it as if to dislodge the missing virtue. Then holding his empty palms upward and outward, and adding the dismay of his shoulders to the fancied situation, he asked: "Where is it? It is gone!"

"Which means we shouldn't tempt Brother Francis's modesty," interposed Alice.

Francis looked at Alice inquiringly. "You are a Catholic?" he said, "your husband not."

Alice laughed: "How did you know?"

Francis waved his hand toward his informant: "Mr. Kimberly."

The answer surprised Alice. She looked at Kimberly.