Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ I can’t say how many years back. Ah,” added he, laughing, “what stories he used to have of that same Milordo, who was always dressing himself up to be as a gondolier or a chamois-hunter.”

      “We have n’t asked for your father’s memoirs, my good fellow; we only wanted you to show us where La Pace lies,” said the Viscount, testily.

      “There it is, then, Eccellenza,” said the man, as they rounded a little promontory of rock, and came in full view of a small cove, in the centre of which stood the villa.

      Untenanted and neglected as it was, there was yet about it that glorious luxuriance of vegetation, that rare growth of vines and olive and oleander and cactus which seems to more than compensate all the care and supervision of men. The overloaded orange-trees dipped their weary branches in the lake, where the golden balls rose and fell as the water surged about them. The tangled vines sprawled over the ground, staining the deep grass with their purple blood. Olive berries lay deep around, and a thousand perfumes loaded the air as the faint breeze stirred it.

      “Let me show you a true Italian villa,” said the Viscount, as the boat glided up to the steps cut in the marble rock. “I once passed a few weeks here; a caprice seized me to know what kind of life it would be to loiter amidst olive groves, and have no other company than the cicala and the green lizard.”

      “Faith, my Lord,” said O’Reilly, “if you could live upon figs and lemons, you ‘d have nothing to complain of; but I ‘m thinking you found it lonely.”

      “I scarcely remember, but my impression is, I liked it,” said he, with a slight hesitation. “I used to lie under the great cedar yonder, and read Petrarch.”

      “Capital fun – excellent – live here for two hundred a year, or even less – plenty of fish in the lake – keep the servants on watermelons,” said Twining, slapping his legs, as he made this domestic calculation to himself.

      “With people one liked about one,” said Miss O’Reilly, “I don’t see why this should n’t be a delicious spot.”

      “There’s not a hundred yards of background. You could n’t give a horse walking exercise here if your life was on it,” said Spicer, contemptuously.

      “Splendid grapes, wonderful oranges, finest melons I ever saw, – all going to waste too,” said Twining, laughing, as if such utter neglect was a very droll thing. “Get this place a bargain, – might have it for a mere nothing.”

      “So you might, O’Reilly,” said the Viscount; “it is one of those deserted spots that are picked up for a tenth of their value; buy it, fit it up handsomely, and we’ll come and spend the autumn with you, – won’t we, Twining?”

      “Upon my life we will, I ‘ll swear it; be here 1st September to the day, and stay till – as long as you please. Great fun!”

      “Delicious spot to come and repose in from the cares and worries of life,” said Lord Lackington, as he stretched upon a bench and began peeling an orange.

      “I ‘d get the blue devils in a week; I ‘d be found hanging some fine morning – ”

      “For shame, papa,” broke in Molly. “My Lord says he ‘d come on a visit to us, and you know we ‘d only be here in the autumn.”

      “Just so – come here for the wine season – get in your olives and look after your oil – great fun,” chimed in Twining, merrily.

      “I declare, I ‘d like it of all things, would not you?” said the elder girl to Spicer, who had now begun to reflect that there was a kind of straw-yard season for men as well as for hunters, – when the great object was to live cheap and husband your resources; and as he ruminated over the lazy quietness of an existence that would cost nothing, when even his “Bell’s Life” should be inserted amongst the family extraordinaires, he vouchsafed to approve the scheme; and in his mumbling tone, in imitation of Heaven knows what celebrated sporting character, he grumbled out, “Make the governor go in for it by all means!”

      Twining had entered into the project most eagerly. One of the most marked traits of his singular mind was not merely to enjoy his own pre-eminence in wealth over so many others, but to chuckle over all the possible mistakes which he had escaped and they had fallen into. To know that there was a speculation whose temptation he had resisted and which had engulfed all who engaged in it; to see the bank fail whose directorship he had refused, or the railroad smashed whose preference shares he had rejected, – this was an intense delight to him; and on such occasions was it that he slapped his lean legs most enthusiastically, and exclaimed, “What fun!” with the true zest of enjoyment.

      To plant a man of O’Reilly’s stamp in such a soil seemed, therefore, about the best practical joke he had ever heard of; and so he walked him over the villa, discoursing eloquently on all the advantages of the project, – the great social position it would confer, the place he would occupy in the country, the soundness of the investment, the certainty of securing great matches for the girls. What a view that window opened of the Splugen Alps! What a delicious spot, this little room, to sip one’s claret of an autumn evening! Think of the dessert growing almost into the very dining-room, and your trout leaping within a yard of the breakfast-table! Austrians charmed to have you – make you a count – a Hof something or other, at once – give you a cross – great fun, eh? – Graf O’Reilly – sound admirably – do it, by all means!

      While Twining’s attack was being conducted in this fashion, Lord Lackington was not less industriously pursuing his plan of campaign elsewhere. He had sauntered with Molly into the garden and a little pavilion at the end of it, where the lake was seen in one of its most picturesque aspects. It was a well-known spot to him; he had passed many an evening on that low window-seat, half dreamingly forgetting himself in the peaceful scene, half consciously recalling pleasant nights at Brookes’s and gay dinners at Carlton House. Here was it that he first grew hipped with matrimony, and so sated with its happiness that he actually began to long for any little disaster that might dash the smooth monotony of his life; and yet now, by one of those strange tricks memory plays us, he fancied that the moments he had once passed here had never been equalled in all his after-life.

      “I’m certain, though you won’t confess,” said she, after one of his most eloquent bursts of remembered enjoyment, – “I ‘m certain you were very much in love those days.”

      “An ideal passion, perhaps, a poetized vision of that bright creature who should, one day or other, sway this poor heart;” and he flattened the creases of his spotless white waistcoat; “but if you mean that I knew of any, had ever seen any, until now, this very moment – ”

      “Stop! remember your promise,” said she, laughing.

      “But, charmante Molly, I ‘m only mortal,” said he, with an air of such superb humility that made her at once remember it was a peer who said it.

      “Mortals must keep their words,” said she, pertly. “The condition on which I consented to accept your companionship was – But I need n’t remind you.”

      “No, do not, dear Molly, for I shall be delighted to forget it. You are aware that no law ever obliged a man to do what was impossible; and that to exact any pledge from him to such an end is in itself an illegality. You little suspected, therefore, that it was you, not I, was the delinquent.”

      “‘All I know is, that you assured me you ‘d not – you ‘d not talk nonsense,” said she, blushing deeply, half angry, half ashamed.

      “Oh! never guessed you were here,” broke in Twining, as he peeped through СКАЧАТЬ