Part 7

A column from Altronde in the _Fieramosca_ of the morrow gave a glowing description of Bertram's and his mother's arrival, which Pontycroft translated at the breakfast table: how the Grand Duke, in the uniform of a general, met and tenderly embraced them as they stepped from the train, and drove with them in a “lando di gala” through streets brilliant with flags and thronged by cheering subjects, to the Palace, escorted by the selfsame regiment of guards whose officers the other day had so summarily cooked the goose of Massimiliano. “That is pretty and touching,” was Ponty's comment, “but listen to this--this is rich. The Grand Duke introduced them to his people, in a proclamation, as 'my most dear and ever dutiful son, and my beloved consort, the companion and consoler of my long exile!' What so false as truth is? Well, there's nothing either true or false but thinking makes it so. And the mayor and corporation, in a loyal address, welcomed Bertram as the 'heir to the virtues as well as to the throne of his august progenitor.' His august progenitor's virtues were jewels which, during his career in Paris, at any rate, he modestly concealed. However! Oh, but here--here's something that really _is_ interesting. 'The festivities of the evening were terminated by a banquet, at which the Grand Duke graciously made a speech.' Listen to one of the things he said: 'It has been represented to me as the earnest aspiration of my people that my solemn coronation should be celebrated at the earliest possible date. But unhappily, the crown of my fathers has been sullied by contact with the brows of a usurping dynasty. That crown I will never wear. A new, a virgin crown must be placed upon the head of your restored legitimate sovereign. And I herewith commission my dear son, whom Heaven has endowed, among many noble gifts, with the eye and the hand of an artist, to design a crown which shall be worthy of his sire, himself, and his posterity.' Well, that will keep Bertram out of mischief. I see him from here--see and hear him--bending over his drawing-board, with busy pencil, and whistling 'The girl I left behind me.'”

And then a servant entered bearing a telegram.

“What will you give me,” Ponty asked, when he had opened and glanced at it, “if I'll read this out?”

“Whom's it from?” asked Lucilla.

“The last person on earth that you'd expect,” he answered. “Come, what will you give?”

“I believe it's from Prince Bertrandoni himself,” cried Lucilla, agog. “If it is, we'll give you fits if you _don't_ read it out--and at once.” She showed him her clenched fist.

“Very good. Under that threat, I'll read it,” remarked Ponty, and he read: “Arrived safely, but homesick for dear Villa Santa Cecilia. My mother joins her thanks to mine for your constant kindness. Will write as soon as an hour of tranquillity permits. Please give my affectionate greetings to Lady Dor and Miss Adgate, and beg them not to forget their and your devoted Bertram.”

“There!” crowed Lucilla. “What did I tell you?”

Ponty looked up blankly. “What did you tell me?”

“That he would come back--that this was only a momentary interruption.”

“Does he say anything about coming back?” Ponty asked, scrutinizing the straw-coloured paper. “That must have missed my eye.”

“Boo,” said Lucilla. “What does he mean by the hope of an early reunion?”

“A slip of the pen for blessed resurrection, I expect,” said Ponty.

“Boo,” said Lucilla. “It's the message of a man obviously, desperately, in love--yearning to communicate with his loved one--but to save appearances, or from lover-like timidity perhaps, addressing his communication to a third person. That telegram is meant exclusively for Ruth, and _you're_ merely used as a gooseberry. Oh, Ruth, I _do_ congratulate you.” Ruth vaguely laughed.

PART FOURTH

I

|FOR quite a week--wasn't it?--obscure little Altronde held the centre of the stage. The newspapers of France and England, as well as those of Italy, had daily paragraphs. Belated details, coming in like stragglers after a battle, gave vividness to the story. Massimiliano, at Paris, plaintively indignant, overflowed in interviews. In interviews also, in speeches, in proclamations, Civillo adumbrated, magniloquently, vaguely, his future policy. There were “Character Sketches,” reminiscent, anecdotal, of Civillo, “By a lifelong Friend,” of Massimiliano, “By a Former Member of his Household,” etc. etc. There were even character sketches of poor Bertram, “By an Old Harrovian,” “By One who knew him at Cambridge,” which I hope he enjoyed reading. In the illustrated papers, of course, there were portraits. And in some of the weightier periodicals the past history of Altronde was recalled, a bleak, monotonous history, little more than a catalogue of murders....

With dagger thrusts and cups of poison, for something like three long sad hundred years, the rival houses of Bertrandoni and Ceresini had played the game of give and take. Finally, there were leading articles condemning the revolution as an act of brigandage, hailing it as a forward step towards liberty and light. And then, at the week's end, the theme was dropped.

We may believe that the newspapers were read with interest at Villa Santa Cecilia, and that to the mistress of that household, on the subject of Altronde, they never seemed to contain enough.

“It's almost as if we'd had a hand in the affair,” she reflected; “but these scrappy newspaper accounts leave us with no more knowledge than as if we were complete outsiders. Why don't they give more particulars? Why aren't they more _intime?_”

“I'll tell you what,” said Ponty, “let's go there. It's only half a day's journey. There we can study the question on the spot.”

“Yes, and look as if we were running after him. No, thank you,” sniffed Lucilla.

“I dare say we should look a little like accusing spirits, if he saw us,” Ponty admitted.

“But let's go in disguise. We can shave our heads, stain our skins, wear elastic-sided boots and pass ourselves off as an Albanian currant merchant and his family travelling to improve our minds in foreign politics.”

“I see Ruth and myself,” Lucilla yawned, “swathed in embroideries and wearing elasticsided boots, and presently we should be arrested as spies, and when our innocent curiosity had been well aired by the press, we should look to Bertram Bertrandoni more like accusing spirits than ever.”

“You women,” growled Pontycroft, extracting a cigarette from his cigarette case, “are so relentlessly cautious! You have no faith in the unexpected! That's why you'll never know the supreme content of throwing your bonnets over the mills, regardless of consequences.”

“The Consequences!” Lucilla retorted, “they're too obvious. We should be left bareheaded, _et voilà tout!_”

“Ah, well--there you are,” replied Ponty, and touched a match to his cigarette.

Yes, we may believe that the newspapers were read with interest at the Villa Santa Cecilia and that they gave the man there occasion for what his sister called “a prodigious deal of jawing.”

“Well, my poor Ariadne,” he commiserated, “ginger is still hot in the mouth, and Naxos is still a comfortable place of sojourn. Our star has been snatched from us and borne aloft to its high orbit in the heavens; we from our lowly coigne of earth can watch and unselfishly rejoice at its high destiny. Of course, the one thing to regret is that you didn't nail him when you had him. Nail the wild star to its track in the half climbed Zodiac,” he advised, sententious.

And in spirit ripe for mischief, Ponty bethought him of a long-forgotten poem, and he went all the way down to Vieusseux to procure a volume of the works of Wordsworth. Henceforth, dreamily, from time to time, he would fall to repeating favourite lines. For nearly a day Ruth bore, with equanimity tempered by repartee, a volley of verse:

“He was a lovely youth, I guess”

said Ponty,

“The panther in the wilderness

Was not so fair as he.”

“I cannot dispute it. He was good-looking,” Ruth suavely returned.

“But,”--this he let fall from the terrace an hour later, to Ruth engaged below in snipping dead leaves from Lucilla's clambering rose bushes,--

“But, when his father called, the youth

Deserted his poor bride, and Ruth

Could never find him more.”

“Fathers make, like mothers, I imagine, a poor substitute for brides,” said Ruth. She glanced at him with amusement. “Never, my nurse used to tell me, is a good while. Did that foolish youth find his bride?” she added, absorbed apparently in her occupation, “when he came back to claim her? As he did at last, you may rest assured.”

Pontycroft made no reply to this question, but he placed his book on the table and prepared to descend the steps:

“God help thee, Ruth,”

he exclaimed.

“Such pains she had

That she in half a year went mad.”

“I'm sure she would have gone mad in twenty-four hours if you had been by to persecute the poor thing,” answered Ruth. She beat a hasty retreat towards the Pergola, whither, she knew, Ponty's laziness would check pursuit of her.

“When Ruth was left half desolate,” Ponty, casually, after luncheon, observed--

“Her lover took another state.

And Ruth not thirty years old.”

“Ruth, it seems to me, was old enough to have known better,” retorted his victim with asperity. “You haven't scanned that last line properly either. 'And Ruth not thirty years old' gives the correct lilt.” Ruth sat down to write her letters. She turned her back with deliberation upon her tormentor, who answered: “Oh, yes, thanks,” and went off murmuring and tattooing on his fingers,--

“And Ruth not thirty years old....”

II

Towards five o'clock of that day, Lucilla and Ruth, spurred and booted--hatted and gloved from their afternoon's drive, appeared for tea upon the terrace. Ponty without loss of time opened fire:

“A slighted child, at her own will,

Went wandering over dale and hill

In thoughtless freedom bold.”

“Only that I can't wander, in thoughtless freedom bold, over dale and hill in this fair false land of Italy,” cried Ruth, exasperated, “I should start at once for a fortnight's walking tour. I feel an excessive desire to remove myself from a deluge of poetic allusions which threatens to get on my nerves. Moreover,” she added severely, “I quite fail to see their application.”

She sat down, drew her gloves off with a little militant air, and prepared to pour the tea which the servant had placed upon a table at her elbow. In the fine October weather the terrace, provided with abundance of tables, chairs and rugs, made, with its superb view over Florence, the pleasantest of _al fresco_ extensions to the drawing-room.

“There, there, there, Ruthie!” soothed Pontycroft, “don't resent a little natural avuncular chaff. _I must play the fool or play the devil_. You wouldn't wish to suppress my devouring curiosity, would you? Here's a situation brimful of captivating possibilities. You wouldn't have me sit in unremunerative silence, in sterile torpor before this case of a little American girl, who, on any day of the week, may be called to assume the exalted rôle of Crown Princess of Altronde?”

“Yes,” frowned Ruth, “I should very much like to suppress your devouring curiosity; I should like extremely to reduce you to a state of unremunerative silence, torpor, on that verily sterile topic. And, moreover, so far as I can see, the Royal Incident may now be billeted closed, for weal or for woe.”

“One can never be quite sure about these Royal Incidents,” her tormentor persisted, “that's the lark about 'em--they're never closed. For sheer pig-headed obstinacy give me a Crown Prince. Our friend Bertram is capable of letting his Queen Mamma in for a deal of trouble in view of present circumstances, if she should, as she's likely to do--want now to marry him off to some Semi-Royalty or German Grand Duchess or another.”

“_Si puo_,” riposted Ruth with hauteur, “I withdraw myself in advance from the competition. And I should like, please, to be spared any more allusions to the subject.”

But here Lucilla, who had been sipping her tea and worshipping the view, interrupted them:

“Do _please_ cease from wrangling,” she implored. “Hold your breaths both of you--and behold!”

A haze all golden,--an impalpable dust of gold,--filled the entire watch-tower of the Heavens. Florence, twice glorified, lay bathed in yellow light that filtered benignantly upon roofs and gardens, played, glanced, upon Duomo, Campanile, and Baptistry. The Arno had become a way of gold. Webs of yellow gauze, spun across the streets and reflected by a thousand windows, made, among the many gardens, a burnished background for the twigs and branches of dark aspiring cypresses, glossy leaved ilexes.

Ruth and Pontycroft held their breaths, and, for a moment, there was a silence.

“I wonder,” Lucilla said at length,--she gave a little soft sigh of satisfaction,--“I wonder what Prince Bertrandoni has done with Balzatore.... Taken him, do you suppose, to reign over the dogs of Altronde? I miss that dog sadly.”

“Balzatore?--Oh,” said Ponty, “Balzatore is throning it at the Palazzo Reale.... He has a special attendant who waits on him, sees to his bodily comforts; prepares his food, takes him for his walks,--for of course Bertram is far too involved in Court functions, too tied by etiquette and the fear of Anarchists to go for long solitary rambles; and Balzatore bullies the servants, one and all, you may be sure. Dogs, even the best of 'em, are shocking snobs. In a measure Balzatore is enjoying himself. It hardly requires a pen'orth of imagination to be positive of it. And,” Pontycroft continued, “I hear that the Palazzo Bertrandoni has been leased for a number of years to an American painter. By the way, it seems that Bertram's bookcases, which, saving your presences, I grieve to state, were filled with very light literature--the writings of decadent poets, people who begin with a cynicism”--Pontycroft paused, hesitated for the just word.

“A cynicism with which nobody ends!” Ruth interjected.

“Invaluable young thing! Thanks awfully. Who begin, as you say, with a cynicism with which nobody ends, as you quite aptly infer. Filled, too, I regret to state, with rare editions, a trifle, well--perhaps a bit eighteenth century--and with yellow paper-covered French novels. These bookcases are expiating a life of frivolity within the four walls of a Convent. They were offered by Bertram's mother to some Sisters of Charity whose temporal welfare she looks after. The good nuns were glad to have the shelves for their poor schools and have packed them with edifying books.... So it happens that to-day they ornament both sides of the Convent-Parloir, and thus it is that Bertram's bookshelves are atoning for the gay, wild, extravagant, old days within convent walls.”

Lucilla tittered. “Shall our end be as exemplary?” Ruth asked, pensive, “or will it fade away into chill and nothingness--like the glory of this,” she smiled at Pontycroft, “April afternoon? B-r-r-r-----” She gave a little shiver.

Pontycroft pulled himself to his feet.

“Tut, tut!” said he. He proffered two white garments which lay over the back of a chair to Ruth and to his sister. “What are these melancholy sentiments? Aren't you contented? Aren't you satisfied, aren't you pleased here?” he asked, and he eyed Ruth inquisitorially.

“Oh yes,--oh yes, I am,” Ruth quickly assured him. “But I do get, now and then, tiresome conscientious scruples. In these halcyon hours I wonder if it isn't my duty to go and have a look at my dear old uncle, all alone there, in America.”

“Ruth--my dear Ruth!” cried Lucilla.

“Why doesn't your 'dear old uncle' come and have a look at you? I think it's _his_ duty to do so; I've thought so for many a day.”

“Oh, he's bound to his fireside, I suppose,” Ruth answered, a touch of melancholy in her voice. “He's wedded to his chimney corner, his books. At seventy-two it's a bore, perhaps, to go wandering into foreign parts.”

“Foreign parts!” Lucilla cried with some scorn. “Are we Ogres? Barbarians? Do we live in the Wilds of America?”

“My dear infant, beware,” cautioned Pontycroft, “beware of the rudiments in your nature of that terrible New England instrument of torture, the Nonconformist Conscience. Despite your Catholic upbringing it will, if you indulge it, I fear, lead you to your ruin. The Nonconformist conscience, I beg you to believe, makes cowards of us all. Now I should suggest a much better plan, and one I have always approved of. Let's _pack up our duds_, as the saying goes, in your country; let's return to sane and merry England; let us for the future and since the pinch of Winter is at our heels, Summer in the South and Winter in the North.”

“England?” gasped Lucilla and Ruth in one breath.

“Why not?” enquired the man of the family. “You are, after all, never so comfortable anywhere, in Winter, as in an English Country House. Roaring fires, invisible hot-water pipes; cozy dark days, libraries full of books, Mudie by post two hours away. Wassailing and Christmas waits; holly and mistletoe, hey for an English winter, sing I! Plum pudding, mince pies, tenants to tip, neighbours, hospitalities.”

“Ugh,” Lucilla wailed, “Perish the awful thought! Neighbours 'calling in sensible, slightly muddy boots' (as your favourite author too truthfully has it), in tweeds and short skirts;--and for conversation--Heaven defend us! The turnip crops, the Pytchley, penny readings, and the latest gossip anent a next-door neighbour. Night all the day--night again at night--and whisky-and-soda at eleven, day or night,--eternally variegated by that boring, semper-eternal Bridge. You'll have to go without me,” declared Lucilla flatly.

“Have you generally Wintered in the North, Summered in the South?” Ruth queried with a gleam.

“No--No,--” replied Pontycroft reflectively, “no,--but if one hasn't really tried it since one's callow days the idea does speak to one. It isn't all beautiful prattle,” he assured her, “but the idea does appeal to one. As one grows old one prefers to be comfortable. A pabulum of beauty is all very well for young things like yourself here and Lucilla who still hug the precious foolish delusion that Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.”

Pontycroft's indolent glance encompassed Florence,--that fair spectacle she presents, in the aura of twilight,--the exquisite hour, _l'heure exquise_. Her amphitheatre of hills,--her white villas, even now charged with rose by the evening glow,--aglow her churches, her gardens and black cypresses. “Yet this is all too like,” he commented, “the enchanter's dream,--at a puff!... No! Fact, Fact, solid Fact is the desideratum! Fact's your miracle in a nutshell. What you and Lucilla call Truth alters with every fresh discovery of man, his climate, education, point of view. Man carries your Beauty in his eye, ears, senses. But Fact, humanly speaking, Fact doesn't give you the least trouble. There it is. Did it never occur to you how splendidly reposeful a fact it is that a turnip field's a turnip field, until you sow beans to rejuvenate it? And here's another, equally comforting: The spider spins its web from its own vitals. Ah, Facts spare one such a deal of thinking, such a lot of enthusiasm!... In your country, my dear young thing,” Pontycroft turned to Ruth, “in your strange, weird, singular, incomprehensible country they sow buckwheat cakes when the turf on the lawn's been killed by frosts; and when the buckwheat cakes have grown, and blossomed--they plough them back into the earth, and sow their grass--and in a month you have your velvet robe again. In similar manner the fact that a cozy English Winter's a cozy English Winter is one agreeably worthy your attention.”

“This flummery of rose bushes,” went on Pontycroft, while his arm described a semicircle,--“this romance of nodding trees laden with oranges ornamental to the landscape; this volubility of heliotrope, mimosa, violets in January, all, all--in a conspiracy to lure one to sit out o' doors and catch an internal, infernal chill,” he sneezed; “all this taken together is not worth that one fine solid indisputable British Fact, a comfortable English Winter! Uncompromising cold without, cheer within.”

“But it's not Winter yet,” Lucilla argued plaintively, “it's only October. Hadn't you better apply the fact of an overcoat to what you've been telling us? You've plunged _me_ into anything but a state of cheer with your sophistries--this absurd juggling with the doleful joys of an English Winter!”

“_Apropos_ of the joys of an English Winter, I wonder whether the post has come?” said Ruth, jumping up. “Pietro's delicacy about disturbing us at tea Lucilla won't call mere laziness. I'll send him for your overcoat,” she added, with a laughing nod, and vanished through the French windows.

III

“Ah,--you see!”

Pontycroft after Ruth's departure ponderated thus on the tone of significance, to his sister. “Ah, ha! You see.... She's eager for news. She's expecting something.... She's on the watch for every post.”

“You're quite off the scent, Harry,” returned his sister languidly. Lucilla, it was plain, was still disturbed by her brother's chaff.

“It's her uncle's semi-annual missive she's so eagerly on the lookout for. The child nourishes a perfect hero-worship for the old man; she writes to him six times to his one. His letters come with military precision, once in a six month. They're invariably brief, and they invariably wind up with this hospitable apophthegm, 'Remember the string's on the latchet of the door whenever you choose to pull it. Whenever you care to look upon your home in Oldbridge you will find a hearty welcome from your affectionate uncle,' then a sabre thrust, his name,--presumably.”

Lucilla rose, with that languid grace she was so famous for. She went to the edge of the terrace and leaned upon the balustrade, where she remained, silently taking in her fill of the peaceful landscape.

IV

Ten minutes elapsed.

Pontycroft, in silence, smoked and wafted the rings of his cigarette towards Florence. And then Ruth reappeared.

She looked pale in the dusk, agitated. In her hands were a couple of letters, she held out one to Lucilla.

“Read it,”--her voice trembled,--“Tell me what I have done to be so insulted,” she commanded; and then she turned away her face, and suddenly she began to weep. Pontycroft watched her in consternation. He had never, in all the years he had known her, he had never seen Ruth in tears.

Lucilla took the letter, blazoned with a gold crown. She read down the page, she turned over to the next, she read on to the end.

“May I see it?--May I see it, Ruth?” Pontycroft asked gently.

Ruth bowed her head. As Pontycroft read she looked at him, her hands lying idly in her lap; and she saw his face cloud as he read. But he, having finished the communication, fell silent for a moment.

“Poor Bertram!” he let fall at last, dropping the letter upon the table.

“_Poor_ Bertram!” cried Ruth. She dabbed her eyes, she made an immense, unsuccessful effort to control herself, quell the ire in her heart.

“Poor Bertram!” she broke forth scornfully. “What have I done, _what can I have done_, to be subjected to such an indignity? Did I lead him on? If I had encouraged him! Lucilla, speak, speak the truth. You both know I did nothing of the sort!” And Ruth stamped her foot. “Has the Heir Apparent to that obscure little Principality called Altronde had any encouragement from me of any kind?... Notwithstanding his visits here, notwithstanding the amusement you've had at my expense!” Ruth looked wrathfully at Pontycroft. “And this, this deliberate, this detestable, this cold-blooded proposition. And you can say '_Poor_ Bertram'!” But then she fell to sobbing violently.

Lucilla flew to her, folded protecting arms about her.