The cure laughed, delighted. "Luckily for me it is real," he said. "And now that you are in it, my Principino--my one-time pupil, my all-time friend--it is perfect. I should like you to love it. I should like--yes, I should like some great happiness to come into your life here. That is an odd fancy, isn"t it? for the great happiness seems likely to be mine in having you with me. But the idea sprang into my mind."
"It is a good idea," said Vanno. "I should like it to come true. I have a favour to ask you, and perhaps--who knows?--your granting it may somehow bring the wish to pa.s.s."
A tiny figure of a woman--so old, so fragile as to look as if she were made of transparent porcelain--appeared as he spoke from an arbour at the far end of the little garden, an arbour whose grapevines hung bannerlike over the precipice. She had a dish in her minute, wrinkled hands, and was so surprised at sight of the tall young stranger that she nearly dropped it.
"My little housekeeper," explained the cure. "She comes to me for a few hours every day, to keep me fed and tidy; and she brings my meals here to the arbour when the weather is fine; for I never tire of the view, and it gives me an appet.i.te that nothing else does."
"I see now why your letters have always been so happy," Vanno said, "and why, when it was offered, you refused promotion in order to stay here."
"Oh, yes, I am very happy, thank Heaven, and I do my best to make others so. G.o.d loves mirth. Dulness is of the devil! I love the place and the people, and the people love me, I trust," the cure answered, with a bright and curiously spiritual smile which transfigured the sunburned face. "You have no idea, my Principino, of the thousand interests we have here in this little mountain village. Once it was of great importance. An English king came in the fourteenth century to visit the Lascaris family at the castle. Those down below hardly know of its existence, even those who come back year after year, but Roquebrune and my garden are world enough for me. Is breakfast ready, Mademoiselle Luciola? Thanks; we will begin as soon as you have brought things to lay another place. Is that not a good name for the wee body--Firefly? Oh, but you should see our fireflies here in May, when the Riviera is supposed to be wiped off the map, not existent till winter. And the glow-worms. I have three in my garden. No garden is complete without at least one glow-worm. I had to beg my first from a neighbour."
"I should like to live up here, and be your neighbour, and cultivate glow-worms," said Vanno, as his host guided him along a narrow path which led between flower-beds to the arbour.
"Why not?" cried the priest, enraptured. "You could buy beautiful land, a plateau of orange trees and olives, carpeted with violets--the pet.i.te campagne I spoke of. You could build a villa, small enough to shut up and put to sleep when you tired of it. We would be your caretakers, the old Mademoiselle and I."
"Would you have me live in my villa alone?" Vanno smiled.
The cure looked merrily sly. "Why not with a bride?" he ventured. "Why not follow your brother Angelo"s example?"
"I must see his bride first, to judge whether his example is worth following. We haven"t met yet."
"Ah," exclaimed the priest, "that reminds me of rather a strange thing!
There came a lady here--but I will tell you, Principino, while we lunch."
Beaming with pleasure in his hospitality, the cure ushered his guest into the arbour, which, like a seabird"s nest, almost overhung the cliff. Under shelter of the thick old grapevine and a pink cataract of roses, a common deal table was spread with coa.r.s.e but spotless damask.
In a green saucer of peasant ware, one huge pink rose floated in water.
The effect was more charming than any bouquet. There was nothing to eat but brown bread with creamy cheese, and grapes of a curious colour like amber and amethysts melted and run together; yet to Vanno it seemed a feast.
The cure explained that the grapes had been grown on this arbour, and that he had them to eat and to give away, all winter. When the porcelain doll of a woman came back, she brought a bottle of home-made wine for Vanno, and some little sponge cakes. But when the Prince said that in England such cakes were named "lady fingers," the cure laughed gayly, and pretended to be horrified. This brought him back to his story, which, in the excitement of helping his guest to food, he had almost forgotten.
"I was going to tell you," he went on, "of a strange thing, and a lady unknown to me, who called here. She was from England, I should say."
Vanno"s heart gave a quick throb. "Could it be possible?" he wondered, "Was she young and beautiful?" he asked aloud. But the answer dashed his rather childish hope.
"Not beautiful, and not a girl, but young still. "Striking" would be the word to express her. And her age, about thirty."
Vanno lost interest. "Why was it so strange that she should call?" he inquired. "People must find their way here sometimes; even those who haven"t you for a friend."
"Yes, sometimes; and I am glad to see them. This was strange only because the lady knew that I was a friend of your family. She came because of that, and put a great many questions; but she refused to tell her name. She said it was not necessary to mention it."
Interest came back again in a degree. "What was she like?" the Prince wanted to know.
The cure thought for a moment, and answered slowly. "I can see her still," he said, "because there was something different about her from any one else I ever saw. As she came toward me in the _Place_, where you and I met, she looked like a statue moving, her face was so white, and her eyes seemed to be white, too, like the eyes of a statue. But when she drew nearer, I saw that they were a pale, whitish blue, rimmed with thin lines of black. There was very little colour in her lips or in her light brown hair, and she had on a gray hat and travelling dress."
"Idina Bland!" Vanno exclaimed.
"You recognize the lady from my description?"
"Yes. What you say about her eyes is unmistakable. She"s a distant cousin of ours--on our mother"s side: Irish, from the north of Ireland; but she has lived a good deal in America with my mother"s brother and sister. She has no nearer relatives than ourselves, and for three winters she was in Rome--oh, long after you went away. I thought she was in America now. I wonder----" He broke off abruptly, and his face was troubled. "What questions did she ask you?" he went on. "Were they about--my brother?"
"Yes. She wished to know if I could tell her just when he was expected with his bride, and what would be their address when they arrived. I had the impression from something she said that she had heard about me from you."
"I don"t remember," said Vanno. "I may have mentioned to her that we had a friend, a cure near Monte Carlo. She has a singularly good memory. She never forgets--or forgives," he added, half under his breath. "When did she come here?"
"The day before yesterday it was, Principino."
"Did she say whether she was staying in the neighbourhood?"
"No, she said nothing about herself, except that she had known your family well for years."
"And about Angelo--what?"
"Nothing, except the questions. She wanted me to tell her whether I had ever met or heard anything of his bride."
"I suppose you didn"t give her much satisfaction?"
"Not much, my Principino. I could not, if I would. But I did say that I believed they were expected in ten days or a fortnight. I hope I was not indiscreet?"
"Not at all. Only--but it doesn"t matter."
"Then, if it doesn"t matter, let us turn to a subject nearer our hearts.
The favour you wished to ask? Which you may consider granted."
After all, it was not quite as easy to explain as Vanno had thought, in his moments of exaltation on the mountain. But he was still determined to carry out his plan.
"You know, Father, when I was a little boy I used to talk with you about what I should do when I grew up, and how I should never fall in love with any girl, no matter how beautiful, unless she had eyes like my favourite stars? How you used to laugh about those "eyes like stars!"
Yesterday I saw a girl in a train at Ma.r.s.eilles. I got into the train, meaning to follow her, no matter how far. It was not like me to do that."
"Pardon me. I think it was," chuckled the cure. "You would always act on impulse, you man of fire--and ice."
"Well, she got off at Monte Carlo, where I myself wanted to stop. I thought that was great luck, at first. I turned over in my mind ways of making her acquaintance. I believed it would be hard to do, but I meant to do it. Now, I"m not sure--not sure of anything about her. I"m not even sure whether I want to know her or not. The favour I have to ask is, that you help me to judge--and help her, if you have to judge harshly."
"I?"
"Yes, you, Father. If she needs help, I"m not the one to help her. But you could do it." And Vanno plunged deeper into explanations, warming with his story and forgetting his first shy stiffness.
As he talked, the cure"s gaze dwelt on him affectionately, appreciatively. He admired the clear look and its fire of n.o.ble purity, not often seen, he feared, on the face of a young man brought up to believe the world at his feet. He admired the dark eyes, profound as the African nights they had loved. He noted the rich brown of the swarthy young face, clear as the profile on old Roman coins, and thought, as he had thought before, that Murillo would have liked to paint that colouring. He approved his Prince"s way of speaking, when he lost self-consciousness and his gestures became free and winged. "How his mother would have loved him as he is now, if she had lived," the priest thought, remembering the warm-hearted Irish-American girl, whose impulses had been held down by the sombre asceticism of her husband, which increased with years. No wonder Prince Vanno was his father"s favourite! Angelo had written that the duke disapproved his marriage, but that Vanno when he had met the bride would "somehow make it all come right." It would be a terrible thing if this younger son should fall in love with the wrong woman; but it was too early yet to begin preachings and warnings. The cure"s kind heart gave him great tact.
"I am to go downstairs and look at this lady, then?" he said.
"Downstairs?"
"Only my expression for going down _there_. I always say that I live upstairs, here at Roquebrune. And I like the upstairs life best."
"Well, you must come down and dine with me, anyhow. Then you will see her, and tell me what you think."
The cure broke into a laugh, like a boy"s. "Me dine at your Hotel de Paris, my son? That is a funny thought. You"re inconsistent. If you think it unsuitable for a lady alone, what about me, a poor country priest from the mountains?"