Sir John Constantine Part 61

But since spring brought back rod and angle, I think and pray that the voice of running water (best medicine in Nature) begins to cure him. He has written the foregoing narrative in a hot fit which, while it lasted, more than once kept his lamp burning till daybreak; and although the last chapter was no sooner finished than he flung the whole away in disgust. I have hopes of him. I may even live to see a child running about these silent terraces . . . But this, my dearest wish, outruns all present indications; and if Prosper ever marries again it will be as his father married, and not for love.[1]

By good fortune I am able to supply the reader with some later news of two members of the expedition, Mr. Fett and Mr. Badc.o.c.k. It came to me, early this summer, in the following letter:--

_To Gervase Arundel, Esq., of Constantine in Cornwall, England_.

"Venice.

Ash Wednesday (4.30 a.m.), 1761.

"Excellent Sir,

"I take up my pen, and lay aside the false nose I have been wearing night and day for close on a week, to make a communication which will doubtless interest you as it has profoundly affected me. It will also interest your nephew and his lady (whose hands I kiss) if they succeeded in effecting their escape to England--where, failing news of them, I do myself a frequent pleasure to picture them at rest upon the quiet waters of domestic felicity. But I address myself rather to you, whom (albeit on the briefest acquaintance) I shall ever regard as the personification of stability and mild repose.

Heracleitus and his followers may prate of a world of flux; but there are men to whom the recollections of their fellows ever turn confidently, secure of finding them in the same place; and of such, sir, you are the palmary example among my acquaintance.

"On the circ.u.mstances of our retreat from Genoa I need not dilate. We decamped--I and my brother _artistes_--to Pisa, where, after an unsatisfactory season, we broke up our company by mutual consent and went our various ways in search of fortune. Mr. Badc.o.c.k--by this time a pantaloon of considerable promise and not to be sneezed at in senile parts where affection or natural decay required, or at least excused, a broken accent--threw in his lot with me: and we bent our steps together upon this unique city, where for close upon twelve months I have drawn a respectable salary as Director of Public Festivities to the Sisterhood of the Conventual Body of Santa Chiara. Nor is the post a sinecure; since these estimable women, though themselves vowed against earthly delights, possess a waterside garden which, periodically--and especially in the week preceding Lent--they throw open to the public; a practice from which they derive unselfish pleasure and a useful advertis.e.m.e.nt.

"On Thursday last, the Giovedi Gra.s.so, the Abbess had (in consultation with me) provided an entertainment which not only attracted the rank and fas.h.i.+on of Venice but (I will dare to say) made them forget the exhaustion of the maddest day of carnival with its bull-baiting and battles of _confetti_.

An hour before midnight all Venice had taken to its gondolas and was being swept, with song and music, towards the Giudecca.

The lagoons swam with the reflections of a thousand moving lanterns, and all their streaming ribbons of light converged upon the bridge of Santa Chiara, beyond which, where the gardens descended in stairways of marble to the water, I had lined the banks with coloured lamps. Discreet narrow water-alleys, less flauntingly lit, but with here and there a caged nightingale singing in the boscage, intersected the sisters' pleasure-grounds; but the main ca.n.a.l led around an ample stretch of turf in the midst of which my workmen had reared a stage for a masque of my composing, ent.i.tled _The Rape of Helen_. Badc.o.c.k, who was to enact the part of Menelaus, had at my request attired himself early, for some few of my nightingales were young birds and not to be depended on, and I had an idea of concealing him in the shrubberies to supply a _flauto obbligato_ while our guests arrived. I had interrupted my instructions to despatch him on some small errand connected with the coloured fires, and he had scarcely disappeared among the laurels, when along the path came strolling two figures I recognized as fellow-countrymen--the young Lord Algernon Shafto, of the English emba.s.sy, and his mother's brother, the Venerable John Kynaston Worley, Archdeacon of Wells.

Lord Algernon wore a domino. His uncle (I need scarcely say) had made no innovation upon the laced hat and gaiters proper to his archidiaconal rank--though it is likely enough that the Venetians found this costume as eccentric as any in the throng.

He had arrived in the city a bare week before; and walked with an arm paternally thrust in his nephew's, while he made acquaintance with the luxurious frivolities of a Venetian carnival.

"As they pa.s.sed me I stooped to trim the peccant wick of one of the many lamps disposed like glowworms along the path: but a moment later their voices told me that my countrymen had found a seat a few paces away, in an arbour whence, by the rays of a paper lantern which overhung it, they could observe the pa.s.sers-by.

"'A wonderful nation,' the Archdeacon was saying, in that resonant voice of which the well-connected among the Anglican clergy (and their wives) alone possess the secret. 'I may tell you, my dear lad, that this visit to Venice has been a dream of my life, cherished though long deferred. I had not your advantages when I was a young man. The Grand Tour was denied me; and a country curacy with an increasing family promised to remove the realization of my dream to the Greek Kalends.

But in all those years I never quite lost sight of it.

There is a bull-dog tenacity in us British: and still from time to time I renewed the promise to myself that, should I survive my dear wife--as I hoped to do--'

"Here, having trimmed my lantern, I straightened myself up to find that Mr. Badc.o.c.k had returned and was standing behind my shoulder. To my amazement he was trembling like an aspen.

"'Hus.h.!.+' said he, when I would have asked what ailed him.

"I listened. I suppose Lord Algernon responded with a polite hope that Venice fulfilled his uncle's long expectation: but I could not catch the words.

"'Entirely so,' was the reply. 'I may even say that it surpa.s.ses them. Such an experience enlarges the mind, the--er--outlook.

And if a man of sixty can confess so much, how happy should you be, my dear Algy, to have received these impressions at _your_ age! Yet, my dear lad, remember they are of value only when received upon a previous basis of character. The ladies, for instance, who own these delightful grounds . . . doubtless they are devout, in their way, but in a way how far removed from those G.o.d-fearing English traditions which one day, as a landlord among your tenantry and to that extent responsible for the welfare of dependent souls, it will be yours to foster!'

"Here, warned by a choking cry, I put out a hand to catch Mr.

Badc.o.c.k by the sleeve of his pallium: but too late! With a wild gesture he broke loose from me and plunged down the pergola towards the arbour, at the entrance of which he flung himself on his knees.

"'Oh, sir!' he panted, abasing himself and stretching forth both hands to the archidiaconal gaiters. 'Oh, sir, have pity!

Teach me to be saved!'

"The Archdeacon (I will say) after the momentary shock rose to the occasion like a sportsman. A glance sufficed to a.s.sure him that the poor creature was in earnest, and with great presence of mind he felt in his pocket for a visiting-card.

"'Certainly, my good fellow, certainly . . . if you will call on me to-morrow at my lodgings . . . two doors from the emba.s.sy. . . . Dear me, how provoking! Would you mind, Algernon, lending me one of your cards? I remember now leaving mine on the dressing-table.'

"He fished out a pencil, took the card his nephew proffered and, having written down name and address, handed it to Badc.o.c.k.

"'The door of grace, my friend, stands ever open to him who knocks. . . . Shall we say at ten-thirty to-morrow morning?

Yes, yes, a very convenient hour for me, if you have no objection? Farewell, then, until to-morrow!' With a benedictory wave of the hand he linked arms with Lord Algernon and strolled away down the walk.

"'Badc.o.c.k,' said I, stepping forward and clapping a hand on his shoulder. 'Hark to the gong calling you to the masque!'

"But the creature stood as in a trance. 'His signature!' he answered in an awed whisper. 'The Archdeacon of Wells's own signature, and upon Lord Algernon's card!'--and I declare to you that he fell to kissing the pasteboard ecstatically.

"Well, he was past all reason. Luckily, having written it, I had his part by rote; and so, s.n.a.t.c.hing his Menelaus' wig and beard, I ran towards the theatre.

"That, sir, is all my tale. The man is lost to me. He left Venice yesterday in the Archdeacon's carriage, but in what precise capacity--whether as valet, secretary, or courier--he would not impart. He told me, however, that his salary was sufficient, if not ample, and that he had undertaken as a repentant sinner to make himself generally useful.

The Archdeacon, it appears, is collecting evidence in particular of the horrors of a Continental Sabbath.

"Addio, sir! For me, I have now parted with the last of my comrades, yet my resolution remains unshaken. On this sacred soil, where so many before me have cultivated the Arts, I will do more. I will make them pay. Meanwhile I beg you to accept my sincere regards, and to believe me

"Your obliged, obedient servant,

"Phineas Fett."

William Priske has espoused Mrs. Nance, our good housekeeper; I believe upon her own advice.

The Trappists (sixteen in number) yet dwell with us, and the left wing of Constantine has been reserved for their use. They have deserved our grat.i.tude, though, out of respect for their rules, I could never convey it to them in words. Indeed, it is but seldom that I get speech even with Dom Basilio. Sometimes when his walk leads him by the river-bank where I stand a-fis.h.i.+ng he will seat himself for a while and watch; and then I find a comfort in his presence, as though we conversed together without help of speech.

Then also, though my reason disapprove of our guest's rigour, an inward voice tells me that there is good in their religion, as perchance there is good wherever men have found anchorage for their souls.

I remember once listening in our summer-house, upon St. Swithun's feast, while my dear brother-in-law disputed with Mr. Grylls upon action and contemplation--which of them was the properer end of man.

I thought then that each of them, though they talked up and down and at large, was in truth defending his own temperament: and, because I loved them both, that neither needed defending. For my own part, the small daily cares of Constantine have stolen away from me, not altogether unhappily, the time of choosing, and I ask now but to follow that counsel of the Apostle wherewith my master Walton closed his book, and "Study to be Quiet."

G.A.

[1] Here--for it scarcely appears in the narrative--let me say that my sister was an exemplary wife and, while fate spared her, a devoted mother. I knew my brother-in-law for a great man, incapable of a thought or action less than kingly, and I wors.h.i.+pped him (as Ben Jonson would say) "on this side idolatry"; but if the Constantines have a fault, it is that they demand too much of life, and exact it somewhat too much as a matter of course. I have heard this fault attributed to other great men.--G.A.

FINIS