Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1. Lever Charles James
almost think so too, my Lady,” muttered he, with a half-dogged look.
“And be sure, Spicer, that we have that cook – Antoine – if we should want him. Don’t let him take a place till we decide where we shall stop.”
“You are aware that he insists on a hundred and fifty francs a month, and his wine.”
“I should like to know what good you are, if I am to negotiate with these creatures myself!” said she, haughtily. “I must say, Lady Grace will suspect that I have rather overrated your little talents, Spicer.” And Lady Grace gave a smile that might mean any amount of approval or depreciation required. “I shall not want that saddle now, and you must make that man take it back again.”
“But I fear, my Lady – ”
“There, don’t be tiresome! What is that odious bell? Oh, it’s the dinner of these creatures. You dine at the table d’hôte, I think, so pray don’t let us keep you. You can drop in to-morrow. Let me see, about two, or half-past. Good-by – good-by.”
And so Mr. Spicer retired. The bow Lady Grace vouchsafed being in reality addressed rather to one of the figures on her fan than to himself.
“One gets a habit of these kind of people,” said Lady Lackington, as the door closed after him; “but really it is a bad habit.”
“I think so too,” said Lady Grace, languidly.
“To be sure, there are now and then occasions when you can’t employ exactly a servant. There are petty negotiations which require a certain delicacy of treatment, and there, they are useful. Besides,” said she, with a half-sneering laugh, “there’s a fashion in them, and, like Blenheim spaniels, every one must have one, and the smaller the better!”
“Monsignore Clifford my Lady, to know if you receive,” said a servant, entering.
“Oh, certainly. I’m charmed, my dear Grace, to present to you the most agreeable man of all Rome. He is English, but ‘went over,’ as they call it, and is now high in the Pope’s favour.”
These words, hurriedly uttered as they were, had been scarcely spoken when the visitor entered the room. He was a tall, handsome man, of about five-and-thirty, dressed in deep black, and wearing a light blue ribbon across his white neckcloth. He advanced with all the ease of good breeding, and taking Lady Lackington’s hand, he kissed the tips of her fingers with the polished grace of a courtier.
After a formal presentation to Lady Grace, he took a seat between the two ladies.
“I am come on, for me, a sad errand, my Lady,” said he, in a voice of peculiar depth and sweetness, in which the very slightest trace of a foreign accent was detectable – “it is to say good-by!”
“You quite shock me, Monsignore. I always hoped you were here for our own time.”
“I believed and wished it also, my Lady; but I have received a peremptory order to return to Rome. His Holiness desires to see me at once. There is some intention, I understand, of naming me as the Nuncio at Florence. Of course this is a secret as yet.” And he turned to each of the ladies in succession.
“Oh, that would be charming – at least for any one happy enough to fix their residence there, and my friend Lady Grace is one of the fortunate.”
Monsignore bowed in gratitude to the compliment, but contrived, as he bent his head, to throw a covert glance at his future neighbour, with the result of which he did not seem displeased.
“I must of course, then, send you back those interesting books, which I have only in part read?”
“By no means, my Lady; they are yours, if you will honour me by accepting them. If the subject did not forbid the epithet, I should call them trifles.”
“Monsignore insists on my reading the ‘Controversy,’ dear Lady Grace; but how I am to continue my studies without his guidance – ”
“We can correspond, my Lady,” quickly broke in the other. “You can state to me whatever doubts – difficulties, perhaps, were, the better word – occur to you; I shall be but too happy and too proud to offer you the solution; and if my Lady Grace Twining would condescend to accept me in the same capacity – .”
She bowed blandly, and he went on.
“There is a little tract here, by the Cardinal Balbi – ‘Flowers of St. Joseph’ is the title. The style is simple but touching – ‘the invitation’ scarcely to be resisted.”
“I think you told me I should like the Cardinal personally,” broke in Lady Lackington.
“His Eminence is charming, my Lady – such goodness, such gentleness, and so much of the very highest order of conversational agreeability.”
“Monsignore is so polite as to promise us introductions at Rome,” continued she, addressing Lady Grace, “and amongst those, too, who are never approached by our countrymen.”
“The Alterini, the Fornisari, the Balbetti,” proudly repeated Monsignore.
“All ultra-exclusives, you understand,” whispered Lady Lacking-ton to her friend, “who wouldn’t tolerate the English.”
“How charming!” ejaculated Lady Grace, with a languid enthusiasm.
“The Roman nobility,” continued Lady Lackington, “stands proudly forward, as the only society in Europe to which the travelling English cannot obtain access.”
“They have other prejudices, my Lady – if I may so dare to call sentiments inspired by higher influences – than those which usually sway society. These prejudices are all in favour of such as regard our Church, if not with the devotion of true followers, at least with the respect and veneration that rightfully attach to the first-born of Christianity.”
“Yes,” said Lady Lackington, as, though not knowing very well to what, she gave her assent, and then added, “I own to you I have always experienced a sort of awe – a sense of – what shall I call it?”
“Devotion, my Lady,” blandly murmured Monsignore, while his eyes were turned on her with a paraphrase of the sentiment.
“Just so. I have always felt it on entering one of your churches – the solemn stillness, the gloomy indistinctness, the softened tints, the swelling notes of the organ – you know what I mean.”
“And when such emotions are etherialised, when, rising above material influences, they are associated with thoughts of what is alone thought-worthy, with hopes of what alone dignifies hope, imagine, then, the blessed beatitude, the heavenly ecstasy they inspire.”
Monsignore had now warmed to his work, and very ingeniously sketched out the advantages of a creed that accommodated itself so beautifully to every temperament – that gave so much and yet exacted so little – that poisoned no pleasures – discouraged no indulgences – but left every enjoyment open with its price attached to it, just as objects are ticketed in a bazaar. He had much to say, too, of its soothing consolations – its devices to alleviate sorrow and cheat affliction – while such was its sympathy for poor suffering humanity, that even the very caprices of temper – the mere whims of fancied depression – were not deemed unworthy of its pious care.
It is doubtful whether these ladies would have accorded to a divine of their own persuasion the same degree of favour and attention that they now bestowed on Monsignore Clifford. Perhaps his manner in discussing certain belongings of his Church was more entertaining; perhaps, too – we hint it with deference – that there was something like a forbidden pleasure in thus trespassing into the domain of Rome. His light and playful style was, however, a fascination amply sufficient to account for the interest he excited. If he dwelt but passingly on the dogmas of his Church, he was eloquently diffuse on its millinery. Copes, stoles, and vestments he revelled in; and there was a picturesque splendour in his description of ceremonial that left the best-“effects” of the opera far behind. How gloriously, too, did he expatiate on the beauty of the Madonna, the costliness of her gems, and the brilliancy of her diadem! How incidentally did he display a rapturous veneration for loveliness,