The Cardinals Snuff-Box | Page 4

bits of greensward. There was a fountain, plashing melodious
coolness, in a nimbus of spray which the sun touched to rainbow pinks
and yellows. There were vivid parterres of flowers, begonia and
geranium. There were oleanders, with their heady southern perfume;
there were pomegranate-blossoms, like knots of scarlet crepe; there
were white carnations, sweet-peas, heliotrope, mignonette; there were
endless roses. And there were birds, birds, birds. Everywhere you heard
their joyous piping, the busy flutter of their wings. There were
goldfinches, blackbirds, thrushes, with their young--the plumpest,
clumsiest, ruffle-feathered little blunderers, at the age ingrat, just
beginning to fly, a terrible anxiety to their parents--and there were also
(I regret to own) a good many rowdy sparrows. There were bees and
bumblebees; there were brilliant, dangerous-looking dragonflies; there
were butterflies, blue ones and white ones, fluttering in couples; there
were also (I am afraid) a good many gadflies--but che volete? Who
minds a gadfly or two in Italy? On the other side of the house there
were fig-trees and peach-trees, and artichokes holding their heads high
in rigid rows; and a vine, heavy with great clusters of yellow grapes,
was festooned upon the northern wall.
The morning air was ineffably sweet and keen--penetrant, tonic, with
moist, racy smells, the smell of the good brown earth, the smell of
green things and growing things. The dew was spread over the grass
like a veil of silver gossamer, spangled with crystals. The friendly
country westward, vineyards and white villas, laughed in the sun at the
Gnisi, sulking black in shadow to the east. The lake lay deep and still, a
dark sapphire. And away at the valley's end, Monte Sfiorito, always
insubstantial-seeming, showed pale blue-grey, upon a sky in which still
lingered some of the flush of dawn.
It was a surprisingly jolly garden, true enough. But though Peter
remained in it all day long--though he haunted the riverside, and cast a
million desirous glances, between the trees, and up the lawns, towards
Castel Ventirose--he enjoyed no briefest vision of the Duchessa di

Santangiolo.
Nor the next day; nor the next.
"Why does n't that old dowager ever come down and look after her
river?" he asked Marietta. "For all the attention she gives it, the water
might be undermining her property on both sides."
"That old dowager--?" repeated Marietta, blank.
"That old widow woman--my landlady--the Duchessa Vedova di
Santangiolo."
"She is not very old--only twenty-six, twenty-seven," said Marietta.
"Don't try to persuade me that she is n't old enough to know better,"
retorted Peter, sternly.
"But she has her guards, her keepers, to look after her property," said
Marietta.
"Guards and keepers are mere mercenaries. If you want a thing well
done, you should do it yourself," said Peter, with gloomy
sententiousness.
On Sunday he went to the little grey rococo parish church. There were
two Masses, one at eight o'clock, one at ten--and the church was quite a
mile from Villa Floriano, and up a hill; and the Italian sun was hot--but
the devoted young man went to both.
The Duchessa was at neither.
"What does she think will become of her immortal soul?" he asked
Marietta.
On Monday he went to the pink-stuccoed village post-office.
Before the post-office door a smart little victoria, with a pair of
sprightly, fine-limbed French bays, was drawn up, ducal coronets

emblazoned on its panels.
Peter's heart began to beat.
And while he was hesitating on the doorstep, the door opened, and the
Duchessa came forth--tall, sumptuous, in white, with a wonderful
black-plumed hat, and a wonderful white-frilled sunshade. She was
followed by a young girl--a pretty, dark-complexioned girl, of fourteen,
fifteen perhaps, with pleasant brown eyes (that lucent Italian brown),
and in her cheeks a pleasant hint of red (that covert Italian red, which
seems to glow through the thinnest film of satin).
Peter bowed, standing aside to let them pass.
But when he looked up, the Duchessa had stopped, and was smiling on
him.
His heart beat harder.
"A lovely day," said the Duchessa.
"Delightful," agreed Peter, between two heart-beats.--Yet he looked, in
his grey flannels, with his straw-hat and his eyeglass, with his lean face,
his even colour, his slightly supercilious moustaches--he looked a very
embodiment of cool-blooded English equanimity.
"A trifle warm, perhaps?" the Duchessa suggested, with her air of polite
(or was it in some part humorous?) readiness to defer to his opinion.
"But surely," suggested he, "in Italy, in summer, it is its bounden duty
to be a trifle warm?"
The Duchessa smiled.
"You like it? So do I. But what the country really needs is rain."
"Then let us hope," said he, "that the country's real needs may remain
unsatisfied."

The Duchessa tittered.
"Think of the poor farmers," she said reproachfully.
"It's vain to think of them," he answered. "'T