The Prophet of Berkeley Square | Page 3

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Etext prepared by Dagny, [email protected] and Emma Dudding,
[email protected]

THE PROPHET OF BERKELEY SQUARE
by ROBERT HICHENS
CHAPTER I
MRS. MERILLIA IS CARRIED TO BED
The great telescope of the Prophet was carefully adjusted upon its lofty,
brass-bound stand in the bow window of Number One Thousand
Berkeley Square. It pointed towards the remarkably bright stars which
twinkled in the December sky over frosty London, those guardian stars
which always seemed to the Prophet to watch with peculiar solicitude
over the most respectable neighbourhood in which he resided. The
polestar had its eye even now upon the mansion of an adjacent ex-
premier, the belt of Orion was not oblivious of a belted earl's cosy
red-brick home just opposite, and the house of a certain famous actor
and actress close by had been taken by the Great Bear under its special
protection.
The Prophet's butler, Mr. Ferdinand--that bulky and veracious
gentleman --threw open the latticed windows of the drawing-room and
let the cold air rush blithely in. Then he made up the fire carefully,
placed a copy of Mr. Malkiel's /Almanac/, bound in dull pink and silver
brocade by Miss Clorinda Dolbrett of the Cromwell Road, upon a small

tulip-wood table near the telescope, patted a sofa cushion affectionately
on the head, glanced around with the meditative eye of the butler born
not made, and quitted the comfortable apartment with a salaried, but
soft, footstep.
It was a pleasant chamber, this drawing-room of Number One
Thousand. It spoke respectfully of the generations that were past and
seemed serenely certain of a comfortable future. There was no too
modern uneasiness about it, no trifling, gim-crack furniture constructed
to catch the eye and the angles of any one venturing to seek repose
upon it, no unmeaning rubbish of ornaments or hectic flummery of
second-rate pictures. Above the high oaken mantel-piece was a little
pure bust in marble of the Prophet when a small boy. To right and left
were pretty miniatures in golden frames of the Prophet's delightfully
numerous grandmothers. Here might be seen Mrs. Prothero, the great
ship- builder's faithful wife, in blue brocade, and Lady Camptown, who
reigned at Bath, in grey tabinet and diamond buckles, when Miss Jane
Austen was writing her first romance; Mrs. Susan Burlington, who
knew Lord Byron--a remarkable fact--and Lady Sophia Green, who
knew her own mind, a fact still more remarkable. The last-named lady
wore black with a Roman nose, and the combination was admirably
convincing. Here might also be observed Mrs. Stuefitt, Mistress of the
Mazurka, and the Lady Jane Follington, of whom George the Second
had spoken openly in terms of approbation. She affected plum colour
and had eyes like sloes--the fashionable hue in the
neat-foot-and-pretty-ankle period. The flames of the fire