My Friend Prospero Part 26

"So I've driven over from Roccadoro," the newcomer continued, "to have a farewell look at a young man of my acquaintance who's staying here. I dare say you may know him. He has blue eyes and a red beard, a flattering manner and a pretty wit, and his name is Blanchemain."

"Oh?" said Maria Dolores, her eyebrows going up. "Is that his name? You mean the young Englishman who lives with the parroco?"

The old lady's eyebrows, which were thick and dark, went up too.

"Is it possible you didn't know his name?" was her surprised e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. Then she said, "I wonder whether he is anywhere about?"

"I fancy he's asleep," said Maria Dolores.

"Asleep? At this hour?" The dark eyebrows frowned their protest. "That sounds like a sad slugabed."

Maria Dolores looked serious. "He was up all night. We have a child ill here, and he was up all night, watching."

The stranger's grey eyes filled with concern and sympathy. "I hope, I'm sure, it's not that pretty little girl, the niece of the parroco?" she said.

"Unhappily, it is," said Maria Dolores. "She has been very ill indeed."

"I am extremely sorry to hear it, extremely sorry," the old lady declared, with feeling. "If I can be of any sort of use--if I can send anything--or in any way help--" Her eyes completed the offer.

"Oh, thank you, thank you," replied Maria Dolores. "You are most kind, but I don't think there is anything any one can do. Besides, she is on the mend now, we hope. The doctor says the worst is probably over."

"Well, thank G.o.d for that," exclaimed the visitor, with a will. She considered for a moment, and then reverted to the previous question. "So you did not know that my vivid young friend's name was Blanchemain?"

"No," said Maria Dolores.

"It is a good name--there's none better in England," averred the old lady, with a nod of emphasis that set the wheat-ears in her bonnet quivering.

"Oh--?" said Maria Dolores, looking politely interested.

"He's the nephew and heir of Lord Blanchemain of Ventmere," her instructress went on. "That is one of our most ancient peerages."

"Really?" said Maria Dolores. (What else did she say in her heart? Where now was her cobbler's son?)

"And I'm glad to be able to add that I'm his sort of connection--I'm the widow of the late Lord Blanchemain." The lady paused; then, with that smile of hers which we know, that smile which went as an advance-guard to disarm resentment, "People of my age are allowed to be inquisitive,"

she premised. "I have introduced myself to you--won't you introduce yourself to me?"

"My name is Maria Dolores of Zelt-Neuminster," answered the person questioned, also smiling.

The widow of the late Lord Blanchemain inwardly gasped, but she was quick to suppress all outward symptoms of that circ.u.mstance. The daughter of Eve in her gasped, but the practised old Englishwoman of the world affably and imperturbably p.r.o.nounced, with a gracious movement of the head, "Ah, indeed? You are then, of course, a relation of the Prince?"

"I am the Prince's sister," said Maria Dolores. And, as if an explanation of her presence was in order, she added, "I am here visiting my old nurse and governess, to whom my brother has given a pavilion of the Castle for her home."

Lady Blanchemain fanned herself. "A miller's daughter!" she thought, with a silent laugh at John's expense and her own. "I am very glad to have made your acquaintance," she said, "and I hope this may not be our last meeting. I'm afraid I ought now to be hastening back to Roccadoro.

I wonder whether you will have the kindness, when you see him, to convey my parting benediction to Mr. Blanchemain. Oh, no, I would not let him be wakened, not for worlds. Thank you. Good-bye."

And with a great effect of majesty and importance, like a conscious thing, her carriage rolled away.

III

"My romance is over, my April dream is ended," said the Princess, with an air, perhaps a feint, of listless melancholy, to Frau Brandt.

"What mean you?" asked Frau Brandt, unmoved.

"My cobbler's son has disappeared--has vanished in a blaze of glory,"

her Serene Highness explained, and laughed.

"I don't understand," said Frau Brandt. "He has not left Sant'

Alessina?"

"No, but he isn't a cobbler's son at all--he's merely been masquerading as one--his name is not Brown, Jones, or Robinson--his name is the high-sounding name of Blanchemain, and he's heir to an English peerage."

"Ah, so? He is then n.o.ble?" Frau Brandt inferred, raising her eyes, with satisfaction.

"As n.o.ble as need be. An English peer is marriageable. So here's adieu to my cottage in the air."

"Here's good riddance to it," said Frau Brandt.

That evening, at the hour of sunset, Maria Dolores met John in the garden.

"You had a visitor this afternoon," she announced. "A most inspiritingly young old lady, as soft and white as a powder-puff, in a carriage that was like a coach-and-four. Lady Blanchemain. She is leaving to-morrow for England. She desired me to give you her farewell blessing."

"It will be doubly precious to me by reason of the medium through which it comes," said John, with his courtliest obeisance.

There was a little pause, during which she looked at the western sky.

But presently, "Why did you tell me you had an uncle who was a farmer?"

she asked, beginning slowly to pace down the pathway.

"Did I tell you that? I suppose I had a boastful fit upon me," John replied.

"But it very much misled me," said Maria Dolores.

"Oh, it's perfectly true," said John.

"You are the heir to a peerage," said Maria Dolores.

John had a gesture.

"There you are," he said; "and my uncle, the peer, spends much of his time and most of his money breeding sheep and growing turnips. If that isn't a farmer, I should like to know what is."

"I hope you displayed less reticence regarding your station in the world to that woman you were in love with," said she.

"That woman I _was_ in love with?" John caught her up. "That woman I _am_ in love with, please."

"Oh? Are you still in love with her?" Maria Dolores wondered. "It is so long since you have spoken of her, I thought your heart was healed."