MY FRIEND
PROSPERO

By HENRY HARLAND

Author of

THE CARDINAL'S SNUFF-BOX.

1903

PART FIRST

My Friend Prospero

I

The coachman drew up his horses before the castle gateway, where their hoofs beat a sort of fanfare on the stone pavement; and the footman, letting himself smartly down, pulled, with a peremptory gesture that was just not quite a swagger, the bronze hand at the end of the dangling bell-cord.

Seated alone in her great high-swung barouche, in the sweet April weather, Lady Blanchemain gave the interval that followed to a consideration of the landscape: first, sleeping in shadowy stillness, the formal Italian garden, its terraced lawns and metrical parterres, its straight dark avenues of ilex, its cypresses, fountains, statues, balustrades; and then, laughing in the breeze and the sun, the wild Italian valley, a forest of blossoming fruit-trees, with the river winding and glinting in its midst, with olive-clad hills blue-grey at either side, and beyond the hills, peering over their shoulders, the snow-peaks of mountains, crisp against the sky, and in the level distance the hazy shimmer of the lake.

"It is lovely," she exclaimed, fervently, in a whisper, "lovely.—And only a generation of blind-worms," was her after-thought, "could discern in it the slightest resemblance to the drop-scene of a theatre."

II

Big, humorous, emotional, imperious, but, above all, interested and sociable Lady Blanchemain: do you know her, I wonder? Her billowy white hair? Her handsome soft old face, with its smooth skin, and the good strong bony structure underneath? Her beautiful old grey eyes, full of tenderness and shrewdness, of curiosity, irony, indulgence, overarched and emphasized by regular black eyebrows? Her pretty little plump pink-white hands, (like two little elderly Cupids), with their shining panoply of rings? And her luxurious, courageous, high-hearted manner of dressing? The light colours and jaunty fashion of her gowns? Her laces, ruffles, embroideries? Her gay little bonnets? Her gems? Linda Baroness Blanchemain, of Fring Place, Sussex; Belmore Gardens, Kensington; and Villa Antonina, San Remo: big, merry, sociable, sentimental, worldly-wise, impetuous Linda Blanchemain: do you know her? If you do, I am sure you love her and rejoice in her; and enough is said. If you don't, I beg leave to present and to commend her.

I spoke, by the bye, of her "old" face, her "old" eyes. She is, to be sure, in so far as mere numbers of years tell, an old woman. But I once heard her throw out, in the heat of conversation, the phrase, "a young old thing like me;" and I thought she touched a truth.

III

Well, then, the footman, in his masterful way, pulled the bell-cord; Lady Blanchemain contemplated the landscape, and had her opinion of a generation that could liken it to the drop-scene of a theatre; and in due process of things the bell was answered.

It was answered by a man in a costume that struck my humorous old friend as pleasing: a sallow little man whose otherwise quite featureless suit of tweeds was embellished by scarlet worsted shoulder-knots. With lack-lustre eyes, from behind the plexus of the grille, he rather stolidly regarded the imposing British equipage, and waited to be addressed.

Lady Blanchemain addressed him in the language of Pistoja. Might one, she inquired, with her air of high affability, in her distinguished old voice, might one visit the castle?—a question purely of convention, for she had not come hither without an assurance from her guide-book.

Shoulder-knots, however,—either to flaunt his attainments, or because indeed Pistoiese (what though the polyglot races of Italy have agreed upon it as a lingua franca) offered the greater difficulties to his Lombardian tongue,—replied in French.

"I do not think so, Madame," was his reply, in a French sufficiently heavy and stiff-jointed, enforced by a dubious oscillation of the head.

Lady Blanchemain's black eyebrows shot upwards, marking her surprise; then drew together, marking her determination.

"But of course one can—it's in the guide-book," she insisted, and held up the red-bound volume.

The sceptic gave a shrug, as one who disclaimed responsibility and declined discussion.

"Me, I do not think so. But patience! I will go and ask," he said; and, turning his back, faded from sight in the depths of the dark tunnel-like porte-cochère.

Vexed, perplexed, Lady Blanchemain fidgeted a little. To have taken this long drive for nothing!—sweet though the weather was, fair though the valley: but she was not a person who could let the means excuse the end. She neither liked nor was accustomed to see her enterprises balked,—to see doors remain closed in her face. Doors indeed had a habit of flying open at her approach. Besides, the fellow's manner,—his initial stare and silence, his tone when he spoke, his shrug, his exhortation to patience, and something too in the conduct of his back as he departed,—hadn't it lacked I don't know what of becoming deference? to satisfy her amour-propre, at any rate, that the mistake, if there was a mistake, sprang from no malapprehension of her own, she looked up chapter and verse. Yes, there the assurance stood, circumstantial, in all the convincingness of the sturdy, small black type:—

"From Roccadoro a charming excursion may be made, up the beautiful Val Rampio, to the mediæval village of Sant' Alessina (7 miles), with its magnificent castle, in fine grounds, formerly a seat of the Sforzas, now belonging to the Prince of Zelt-Neuminster, and containing the celebrated Zelt-Neuminster collection of paintings. Incorporated in the castle buildings, a noticeable peculiarity, are the parish church and presbytery. Accessible daily, except Monday, from 10 to 4; attendant 1 fr."

So then! To-day was Wednesday, the hour between two and three. So—! Her amour-propre triumphed, but I fancy her vexation mounted....

IV

"I beg your pardon. It's disgraceful you should have been made to wait. The porter is an idiot. You wish, of course, to see the house—?"

The English words, on a key of spontaneous apology, with a very zealous inflection of concern—yet, at the same time, with a kind of entirely respectful and amiable abruptness, as of one hailing a familiar friend,—were pronounced in a breath by a brisk, cheerful, unmistakably English voice.

Lady Blanchemain, whose attention had still been on the incriminated page, looked quickly up, and