Mixed Grill/Foreign Affairs
IX
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
We parted from Mr. Peter A. Chasemore at Bologna owing to a slight difference of opinion. Carolyn Stokes and myself had the notion that we should find Venice damp and possibly cold; Mr. Chasemore declared that to go home without seeing a gondola would give him a pain compared with which rheumatism might be considered a sensation of acute delight. There is no use denying the fact that we two women missed Mr. Chasemore a good deal. Confusion took place on the journey, for which I blamed Carolyn Stokes, and she blamed me. When with the assistance of luck we did reach the Belvedere our tempers were not improved by the fact that a young man and an elderly lady occupied, for the moment, the attention of the hotel people.
“Norman,” she said to him, as the proprietor eventually came to us, “you can consider yourself free for the remainder of the day.” He bowed. “Give me that; I will take charge of it.” Both Carolyn Stokes and myself noticed the name on the label as the leather case was being transferred.
I suppose the fact that there are no such titles where we come from caused the encounter to make an impression upon us; we watched her as she went up in the elevator, and noticed the special consideration paid by attendants. At home we reckon everybody to be equal, with a few exceptions, but here it was evident that to be called Lady Mirrible counted for something, and we naturally fell in with the local view. When you are in Rome you should do as the Romans do; the remark applies equally well to Florence. The young man gave way to us at the desk of the concierge, and Carolyn Stokes offered him a large smile.
“Have you come far?” she asked.
“Fairly good distance.”
“Are you going soon?”
“That doesn't quite depend upon me,” he replied.
I mentioned when we were in our room that a considerable amount of information had not been extracted, and Carolyn Stokes said no doubt I should prove more successful in the game. I replied that this seemed highly probable, and we did not speak to each other again until the gong sounded in the corridor announcing that the meal was almost ready. Downstairs in the reading-room we encountered a nasty jar in the discovery that none of the rest of the people had dressed specially for dinner. This was one of the small difficulties caused by the absence of a man capable of making inquiries beforehand.
“I beg your pardon,” he remarked. He had taken the Herald from the table just as my hand went out; he replaced it and selected a London journal. I was determined to let Carolyn Stokes see that I could manage the situation better than she had done.
“You are not an American?” I asked.
“I am only English.”
“We have met several very pleasant folk from your country in the course of our travels.”
“How extremely fortunate.”
“What startles us amongst you is your class distinctions. You should, I think, make an endeavour to break down the barriers.”
“Something ought certainly to be done,” he agreed. And went off with his newspaper.
Carolyn Stokes mentioned—not for the first time—that she was old enough to be my mother, and went on to argue that whereas it was quite permissible for a woman of her age to speak at an hotel to a stranger, the case was entirely different where a girl of twenty was concerned. All the same when she found him seated at the next table in the dining-room she allowed me to take the chair which enabled me to speak across to him without twisting my neck. From what I heard him say to the waiter I gained that her ladyship was taking the meal in her own room.
Carolyn Stokes has many estimable qualities, but I have more than once had to point out to her that she does not exercise a sufficient amount of restraint over her conversational powers. Also she pitches her voice somewhat high, rather as though she, being at Liverpool, were addressing a public meeting in New York. I am myself a good and fluent talker, but my chances are small if I enter into competition with Carolyn. It was difficult, however, to overlook the fact that he preferred listening to me, and when we both spoke at once it was I who secured his attention. I asked him what there was to be seen in Florence of an evening when the picture galleries were closed, and he said we could not do better than stroll down the Lung 'Arno, see the Vecchio bridge, returning by way of the Piazza Vittore Emmanuele.
“We should scarcely dare to go out alone,” I remarked.
He crumbled his bread for a moment.
“I think,” he said, “it will be possible for me to place myself at your disposal.”
“That is perfectly sweet of you,” cried Carolyn Stokes. We arranged to meet at nine o'clock in the entrance hall.
Taking our coffee in the drawing-room Carolyn and myself came to the conclusion that there was more in the wisdom of Providence than some people care to admit. If Mr. Chasemore had decided to come on with us to Florence the likelihood was that we should have had no opportunity of making this very fortunate and delightful acquaintance; there would have been less to record in our diaries under the heading of that day. Carolyn's impression was that the son of a titled lady was a viscount, but she could not be certain; she had on some far-distant occasion studied the matter thoroughly, but most of the information then acquired seemed to have been erased from her mind. Anyway the chance was too good to lose, and Carolyn Stokes said the great thing was to exhibit not too much eagerness, but to allow friendship to ripen, so to speak, in the course of the next twenty-four hours. Carolyn has a distinct streak of sentimentality in her character, and she spoke of the influence of blue Italian skies and the moon shining on the water, and Dante and Beatrice, and the new hat I had purchased in the Via Condotti at Rome. We went upstairs to put on some wraps.
In the passage her ladyship's head was out of her door, and she was calling in an imperative kind of way.
“Norman, Norman! Where on earth has he got to again? Never here somehow when he's wanted.” One of the hotel maids came along and she gave her a message. “The lad really,” she said, taking her head in, “is perfectly useless.”
Carolyn Stokes was occupying a few minutes later a central position at the mirror in our room when she suddenly gave a shriek; I assumed it was only the presence of a moth in the room. As she did not shriek again I considered the hideous danger was past and done with, and I requested her to permit me to share the mirror for a moment.
“Child,” she announced in a subdued sort of voice and still gazing into the glass, “I have seen it all in a flash. You are under the impression that he is some sort of a nobleman. He is nothing of the kind. He is merely a footman or a courier, paid a moderate amount per week to attend on this Lady Somebody. That's what he is,” she said, striking the dressing table, “and I am more thankful than I can express that I have discovered it in time.”
“The question can be easily decided,” I mentioned. “We have only to glance in the book kept at the desk below.”
“I did that, but they have not yet registered.”
“Then a question must be put to the people of the hotel.”
“That I also did,” replied Carolyn Stokes, “and their acquaintance with the American language made them assume that I required a postcard with a view of the cathedral. They have no right,” she went on vehemently, “in these foreign hotels to allow a footman to dine with the other guests. I know it is done, but no one will persuade me that it is right or fair to respectable visitors. It ought to be stopped.”
I sat on the rocking chair and took some violent exercise for a few minutes in order to collect my thoughts. It seemed we were in a somewhat difficult corner. To stay in our room only meant that he would come and knock at the door; the wisest plan appeared to be to effect an escape. Carolyn Stokes, for once, agreed with me.
“I wish Mr. Chasemore were here,” she said.
We went along the corridor very quietly and crept down the staircase. From the last landing we could see him waiting near the desk of the concierge. There was no means of slipping past without being seen.
“I tell you what to do!” I whispered. “You must go and inform him that I have been taken suddenly ill.”
“A good idea,” she said, “but I would so much rather you went and told him that I was ill.”
He tapped with his walking-stick impatiently on the floor, moved to examine letters in the rack. I pulled at Carolyn Stokes's arm in order to persuade her to make a run for it; before I could arouse her dormant intelligence he had returned to his former position. He glanced at the clock and at his watch; Carolyn Stokes sat on the stairs.
“Meanwhile,” I grumbled, “we are missing valuable moments in a most interesting and historical city.”
“Think,” she said impressively, “think of the fate from which I have saved you.”
The call of “Norman!” came again, but apparently it did not reach his ears. I am a creature of impulse and, without thinking, I imitated the call. He whipped off his cap at once, laid down his walking-stick and started up, taking two steps at a time and coming near to us.
Carolyn Stokes and myself will never be able to decide which of us took the initiative, which gripped at the other and used some amount of force. We discovered ourselves in the nearest room, where an elderly gentleman was about to retire to rest; I had never thought the time would come when I should be thankful for not understanding a foreign language. The young man rushed by; we made our escape just as the aged person was about to throw a hair brush.
We tried to persuade ourselves, in walking along the side of the river, that all was well that ended well. Carolyn Stokes said the experience was one she wished never to undergo again, and for some reason reproached me. We walked as far as the Trinity Bridge, turned to the left, found ourselves in the Via del Moro, came later to the Piazza de St. Maria Novello, took what we thought would be a short cut for the hotel, and lost ourselves. Carolyn Stokes asked the way of two or three people in tones quite loud enough to enable them to understand, but success did not crown her efforts.
“Why, here you are!” cried an English voice. We turned, and for the moment we both forgot how anxious we had been not to meet him. “Now, how in the world did I manage to miss you? My fault, I'm sure.”
“It would be kind of you,” said Carolyn Stokes with reserve, “to put us in the right direction for our hotel.”
“But, of course, I'll see you back there with the greatest pleasure. Unless you like to allow me, even now, to show you round the town. As a matter of fact, the hotel is just round the corner. There's the Garibaldi statue.”
“I am somewhat fatigued,” she said, “and I would prefer to return.”
“And you?” he said, turning to me.
“There has been a mistake made,” I answered resolutely. “We took you for somebody else. You must allow us to close the acquaintance here and now.”
“No idea I had a double,” he remarked. “This matter must be looked into or complications may ensue.”
“We jumped to the conclusion that you were the son of the lady you are travelling with.”
“I am,” he answered. Carolyn Stokes and I began to talk together; he appeared to do his best to understand us, but presently gave up the attempt and led the way to the hotel. There in the entrance hall he spoke again.
“So it was because I showed some attention to my dear mother that you thought I was a courier.”
We interrupted, and endeavoured once more to explain.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “Had an idea this was going to be quite a pleasant friendship. Goodbye.”
I kept awake half that night making my plans. But in the morning fresh English visitors—more titles—had arrived, and some of them knew him, and they surrounded him, and the girls made a fuss of him, and there was no chance of my getting near. A letter came for me from Venice saying that the writer would be in Milan on Wednesday. “Yours with affectionate regards, P. A. C.”
I have now to rely upon my tact and my industry and my own bright, intelligent young mind to assist me in marrying Mr. Peter A. Chasemore.