Read Ebook: Comedies and Errors by Harland Henry

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Ebook has 1907 lines and 87573 words, and 39 pages

THE CONFIDANTE

MERELY PLAYERS

THE FRIEND OF MAN

TIRALA-TIRALA...

THE INVISIBLE PRINCE

P'TIT-BLEU

THE HOUSE OF EULALIE

THE QUEEN'. PLEASURE

COUSIN ROSALYS

FLOWER O' THE CLOVE

ROOMS

ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE

THE CONFIDANTE

Every one who knew Rome fifteen or twenty years ago must remember Miss Belmont. She lived in the Palazzo Sebastiani, a merry little old Englishwoman, the business, the passion, of whose existence it was to receive. All the rooms of her vast apartment on the piano nobile were arranged as reception-rooms, even the last of the suite, in the corner of which a low divan, covered by a Persian carpet, with a prie-dieu beside it, and a crucifix attached to the wall above, was understood to serve at night as Miss Belmont's bed. Her day, as indicated by her visiting-card, was Thursday; but to those who stood in her good books her day was every day, and--save for a brief hour in the afternoon, when, with the rest of Rome, she drove in the Villa Borghese--all day long. Then almost every evening she gave a little dinner. I have mentioned that she was old. She was proud of her age, and especially proud of not looking it. "I am seventy-three," she used to boast, confronting you with the erect figure, the bright eyes, the firm cheeks, of a well-preserved woman of sixty. Her rooms were filled with beautiful and precious things, paintings, porcelains and bronzes, carvings, brocades, picked up in every province of the Continent, "the spoils of a lifetime spent in rummaging," she said. All English folk who arrived in Rome decently accredited were asked to her at-homes, and all good Black Italians attended them. As a loyal Black herself, Miss Belmont, of course, knew no one in any way affiliated with the Quirinal.

One of Miss Belmont's Thursday afternoons has always persisted in my memory with a quite peculiar vividness. It was fifteen years ago, if you will; and yet I remember it, even the details of it, as clearly as I can remember the happenings of last week--as clearly indeed, but oh, how much more pleasantly! Was the world really a sweeter, fresher place fifteen years ago? Has it really grown stale in fifteen little years? It seemed, at any rate, very sweet and fresh, to my undisciplined perceptions, on that particular Thursday afternoon.

We were in December, and there was never so light a touch of frost on the air, making it keen and exhilarating. I remember walking down a long narrow street, at the end of which the sky hung like a tapestry, splendid with the colours of the sunset: a street all clamour and business and bustle, as Roman streets are apt to be when there is a touch of the tramontano on the air. Cobblers worked noisily, tap-tap-tapping, in their out-of-door stalls; hawkers cried their wares, and old women stopped to haggle with them; wandering musicians thrummed their guitars and mandolines, singing "Funiculi, Funicul?," more or less in tune; and cabs rattled perilously over the cobble-stones, whilst their drivers shrieked warnings at the foot-passengers, citizens soldiers, beggars, priests, like the populace in a comic opera.

But within the Palazzo Sebastiani the scene was as different as might be. Thick curtains were drawn over the windows; innumerable wax candles burned and flickered in sconces along the walls; there were flowers everywhere, lilies and roses, and the air was heady with their fragrance; there were people everywhere too, men in frock-coats, women in furs and velvets, monsignori from the Vatican lending a purple note. And there was a continuous, confused, rising, falling, murmur of conversation.

When I had made my obeisance to Miss Belmont, she said, "Come. I want to introduce you to the Contessa Bracca."

Now, this will seem improbable, of course; but you know how one sometimes has premonitions; and, upon my word, it is the literal fact: I had never heard of the Contessa Bracca, her name could convey nothing to me; and yet, when Miss Belmont said she wished to present me to her, I felt a sudden knock in my heart, I felt that something important was about to happen to me. Why?...

She was seated in an old high-backed chair of carved ebony, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, one of Miss Belmont's curiosities. She wore a jaunty little toque of Astrakhan lamb's-wool, with an aigrette springing from it, and a smart Astrakhan jacket. It was a singularly pleasant face, a singularly pretty and witty and interesting face, that looked up in the soft candle-light, and smiled, as Miss Belmont accomplished the presentation; it was a singularly pleasant voice, gentle, yet crisp, characteristic, that greeted me.

But Miss Belmont had spoken to the Contessa in English; and the Contessa spoke to me in English, with no trace of an accent. I was surprised; and I was shy and awkward. So I could think of nothing better than to exclaim--

"Oh, you are English!"

She smiled--it was a quiet little amused but kindly smile, rather a lightening of her eyes than a movement of her features--and said, "Why not?"

"I thought you would be Italian," I confessed.

She was still smiling. "And are you inconsolable to find that I'm not?" she asked.

"Oh, no. On the contrary, I am very glad," I assured her, with sincerity.

At this, her smile rippled into laughter; and she murmured something in which I caught the words "youth" and "engaging candour."

"Oh, I'm not so furiously young," I protested.

She raised her eyebrows, gazing at me quizzically.

"Aren't you?" she inquired.

"I'm twenty-two," I announced, with satisfaction.

"Oh, dear!" She laughed again. "And twenty-two you regard as the beginning of old age?" she suggested.

"At all events, one is no longer a child at twenty-two," I argued solemnly, "especially if one has seen the world a bit."

My conversation appeared to divert her more than I could have hoped; for still again she laughed.

Then, "Ah, wait till you're my age--wait till you're a hundred and fifteen," she pronounced in a hollow voice, making her face long, and shaking her head.

It was my turn to laugh now. Afterwards, "I don't believe you're much older than I am," I confided to her, with bluff geniality.

"What's the difference between twenty-two and thirty--especially when one has seen the world a bit?" she asked.

"You're never thirty," I expostulated.

"An experienced old fellow of two-and-twenty," she observed, "must surely be aware that people do sometimes live to attain the age of thirty."

"You're not thirty," I reiterated.

"Perhaps not," she said; "but unless I'm careful, I shall be, before I know it. Have you been long in Rome?"

"Oh, I'm an old Roman," I replied airily. "We used to come here when I was a child. And I was here again when I was eighteen, and again when I was twenty."

"Mercy!" she cried. "Then you will be able to put me up to the tricks of the town."

"Why, but you live here, don't you?" I wondered simply.

"Yes, I suppose I live here," she assented. "I live in the Palazzo Stricci, you must come and see me. I'm at home on Mondays."

"Oh, thank you; I'll come the very first Monday that ever is," I vowed. For, though she had teased me and laughed at me, I thought she was very charming, all the same.

"Well, and how did you get on with the Countess Bracca?" Miss Belmont asked. When I had answered her, she proceeded, as her wont was, to volunteer certain information. "She was a Miss Wilthorpe, you know--the Cumberland Wilthorpes, a staunch old Catholic family. Her mother was a Frenchwoman, a Montargier. Monsignor Wilthorpe is her cousin. Her husband, Count Bracca, held a commission in the Guardia Nobile--between ourselves, a creature of starch and whalebone, a pompous noodle. She was married to him when she was eighteen. He died three or four years ago: a good thing too. But she has continued to live in Rome, in the winter. In the summer she goes to England, to her people. Did she ask you to go and see her? Go, on the first occasion. Cultivate her. She's clever. She'll do you good. She'll form you," Miss Belmont concluded, looking at me with a critical eye.

On Monday, at the Palazzo Stricci, I was ushered through an immense sombre drawing-room, and beyond, into a gay little blue-and-white boudoir. The Contessa was there alone. "I am glad you have come early," she was good enough to say. "We can have a talk together, before any one else arrives."

She wore a delightful white frock, of some flexile woollen fabric embroidered in white silk with leaves and flowers. And I discovered that she had very lovely hair, great quantities of it, undulating richly away from her forehead; hair of an indescribable light warm brown, a sort of fawn colour, with reflections dimly red. She was seated in the corner of a sofa, leaning upon a cushion of blue satin covered with white lace. I had not noticed her hair the other day at Miss Belmont's, in the vague candle-light. Now I could not take my eyes from it. It filled me with astonishment and admiration.

"Oh," I said--I suppose I blushed and stammered, but I had to say it--"you--you must let me tell you--what--what wonderful hair you have."

The poor lady! She shook her head; she lay back in her place and laughed. "Forgive me, forgive me for laughing," she said. "But--your compliment--it was a trifle point-blank--I was slightly unprepared for it. However, you're quite right. It's not bad hair," she conceded amiably. "And it was very--very natural and--and nice--of you to mention it. Now sit down here, and we will have a good long talk," she added. "You must tell me all about yourself. We must get acquainted."

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