Part 34

“Yes, I daresay we are perishing with cold,” she admitted.

“And I have no means of offering you a fire--there are no fireplaces,” he groaned, with a gesture round the bleak Italian room, to certify their absence.

“Is n't there a kitchen?” asked the Duchessa, a faint spark of raillery kindling amid the forlornness of her smile.

Peter threw up his hands.

“I had lost my head. The kitchen, of course. I 'll tell Marietta to light a fire.”

He excused himself, and sought out Marietta. He found her in her housekeeper's room, on her knees, saying her rosary, in obvious terror. I 'm afraid he interrupted her orisons somewhat brusquely.

“Will you be so good as to start a rousing fire in the kitchen--as quickly as ever it can be done?”

And he rejoined his guests.

“If you will come this way--” he said.

Marietta had a fire of logs and pine-cones blazing in no time. She courtesied low to the Duchessa, lower still to the priest--in fact, Peter was n't sure that she did n't genuflect before him, while he made a rapid movement with his hand over her head: the Sign of the Cross, perhaps.

He was a little, unassuming-looking, white haired priest, with a remarkably clever, humorous, kindly face; and he wore a remarkably shabby cassock. The Duchessa's chaplain, Peter supposed. How should it occur to him that this was Cardinal Udeschini? Do Cardinals (in one's antecedent notion of them) wear shabby cassocks, and look humorous and unassuming? Do they go tramping about the country in the rain, attended by no retinue save a woman and a fourteen-year-old girl? And are they little men--in one's antecedent notion? True, his shabby cassock had red buttons, and there was a red sash round his waist, and a big amethyst glittered in a setting of pale gold on his annular finger. But Peter was not sufficiently versed in fashions canonical, to recognise the meaning of these insignia.

How, on the other hand, should it occur to the Duchessa that Peter needed enlightenment? At all events, she said to him, “Let me introduce you;” and then, to the priest, “Let me present Mr. Marchdale--of whom you have heard before now.”

The white-haired old man smiled sweetly into Peter's eyes, and gave him a slender, sensitive old hand.

“E cattivo vento che non e buono per qualcuno--debbo a questa burrasca la pregustazione d' un piacere,” he said, with a mingling of ceremonious politeness and sunny geniality that was of his age and race.

Peter--instinctively--he could not have told why--put a good deal more deference into his bow, than men of his age and race commonly put into their bows, and murmured something about “grand' onore.”

Marietta placed a row of chairs before the raised stone hearth, and afterwards, at her master's request, busied herself preparing tea.

“But I think you would all be wise to take a little brandy first,” Peter suggested. “It is my despair that I am not able to provide you with a change of raiment. Brandy will be the best substitute, perhaps.”

The old priest laughed, and put his hand upon the shoulder of Emilia.

“You have spared this young lady an embarrassing avowal. Brandy is exactly what she was screwing her courage to the point of asking for.”

“Oh, no!” protested Emilia, in a deep Italian voice, with passionate seriousness.

But Peter fetched a decanter, and poured brandy for everyone.

“I drink to your health--c'est bien le cas de le dire. I hope you will not have caught your deaths of cold,” he said.

“Oh, we are quite warm now,” said the Duchessa. “We are snug in an ingle on Mount Ararat.”

“Our wetting will have done us good--it will make us grow. You and I will never regret that, will we, Emilietta?” said the priest.

A lively colour had come into the Duchessa's cheeks; her eyes seemed unusually bright. Her hair was in some disorder, drooping at the sides, and blown over her brow in fine free wavelets. It was dark in the kitchen, save for the firelight, which danced fantastically on the walls and ceiling, and struck a ruddy glow from Marietta's copper pots and pans. The rain pattered lustily without; the wind wailed in the chimney; the lightning flashed, the thunder volleyed. And Peter looked at the Duchessa--and blessed the elements. To see her seated there, in her wet gown, seated familiarly, at her ease, before his fire, in his kitchen, with that colour in her cheeks, that brightness in her eyes, and her hair in that disarray--it was unspeakable; his heart closed in a kind of delicious spasm. And the fragrance, subtle, secret, evasive, that hovered in the air near her, did not diminish his emotion.

“I wonder,” she asked, with a comical little glance upwards at him, “whether you would resent it very much if I should take off my hat--because it's a perfect reservoir, and the water will keep trickling down my neck.”

His joy needed but this culmination that she should take off her hat!

“Oh, I beg of you--” he returned fervently.