The Lee Shore Part 9

Rhoda kindled and flushed and looked suddenly pretty. Peter heard a smothered sigh on his left.

"I don't like it," Mrs. Johnson murmured to him. "No, I don't. If it was you, now, as offered to take her--But there, I daresay you wouldn't be clever enough to suit Rhoder; she's so partic'lar. You and me, now--we get on very well; seems as if we liked to talk on the same subjects, as it were; but Rhoder's different. When we go about together, it's always, 'Mother, not so loud! Oh, mother, you mustn't! Mother, that ain't really beautiful at all, and you're givin' of us away. Mother, folks are listening.' Let 'em listen is what I say. They won't hear anything that could hurt 'em from me. But Rhoder's so quiet; she hates a bit of notice.

Not that she minds when she's with _him_; he talks away at the top of his voice, and folks do turn an' listen--I've seen 'em. But I suppose that's clever talk, so Rhoder don't mind."

She raised her voice from the thick and cautious whisper which she thought suitable for these remarks, and addressed Peggy.

"Well, we've had a good dinner, my dear--plenty of it, if the rice _was_ a bit underdone."

"A grain," Miss Gould was murmuring to the curate, "a single grain would have had unspeakable effects...."

Peggy was endeavouring to comb Caterina's exceedingly tangled locks with the fingers of one hand, while with the other she slapped Silvio's (Larry's) bare and muddy feet to make him take them off the table-cloth.

Not that they made much difference to the condition of the table-cloth; but still, there are conventions.

"It is a disgrace," Hilary remarked mechanically, "that my children can't behave like civilised beings at a meal ... Peter, what are you going to do this afternoon?"

The boarders rose. Mrs. Johnson patted Peter approvingly on the arm, and said, "I'm glad to of had the pleasure. One day we'll go out together, you and me. Seem as if we look at things from the same point of view, as it were. You mayn't be so clever as some, but you suit me. Now, my dear, I'm goin' to help you about the house a bit. The saloon wants dustin', I noticed."

Peggy sighed and said she was sure it did, and Teresina was hopeless, and Mrs. Johnson was really too kind, but it was a shame to bother her, and the saloon could go another while yet. She was struggling with the children's bibs and rather preoccupied.

The boarders went out to pursue their several avocations; Rhoda and Mr.

Vyvian to the church of San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, that Mr. Vyvian might the better explain what he meant; Miss Barnett, round-about and cheerful, sketch-book in hand, to hunt for "Venice, Her Spirit," in the Pescaria; Miss Gould to lie down on her bed and recover from lunch; the curate to take the air and photographs for his magic lantern lectures to be delivered in the parish-room at home; and Mrs. Johnson to find a feather broom.

Hilary sat down and lit a cigar, and Illuminato crawled about his legs.

"I'm going out with Leslie," said Peter. "We're going to call on the prince and see the goblet and begin the haggling. We must haggle, though as a matter of fact Leslie means to have it at any price. It must be a perfectly ripping thing.... Now let me have a number of 'The Gem' to read. I've not seen it yet, you know."

"It's very dull, my dear," Peggy murmured, rinsing water over the place on the table-cloth where Silvio's feet had been.

Hilary was gazing into the frog-like countenance of his youngest son. It gave him a disappointment ever new, that Illuminato should be so plain.

"But your mother's handsome, frog," he murmured, "and I'm not worse than my neighbours to look at." (But he knew he was better than most of them).

"Let's hope you have intellect to make up. Now crawl to your uncle Peter, since you want to."

Illuminato did want to. He adored his uncle Peter.

"The Gem, Peter?" said Hilary. "Bother the Gem. As Peggy remarks, it's very dull, and you won't like it. I don't know that I want you to read it, to say the truth."

Peter was in the act of doing so. He had found three torn pages of it on the floor. He was reading an article called "Osele." Hilary glanced at it, with the slight nervous frown frequent with him.

"What have you got hold of?... Oh, that." His frown seemed to relax a little. "I really don't recommend the thing for your entertainment, Peter. It'll bore you. I have to provide two things--food for the interested visitor, and guidance for Lord Evelyn's mania for purchasing."

"So I am gathering," Peter said. "I'm reading about _osele_, marked with the Mocenigo rose. Signor Antonio Sardi seems to be a man worth a visit.

I must take Leslie there. That's just the sort of thing he likes. And sixteenth-century visiting cards. Yes, he'd like those too. By all means we'll go to your friend Sardi. You wrote this, I suppose?"

Hilary nodded. His white nervous fingers played on the arm of his chair.

It seemed to be something of an ordeal to him, this first introduction of Peter to the Gem.

Peggy, a.s.sisting Teresina to bundle the crockery off the table, shot a swift glance at the group--at Hilary lying back smoking, with slightly knitted forehead, one unsteady hand playing on his chair; at Peter sitting on the marble floor with the torn fragments of paper in his hands and Illuminato astride on his knee. Peggy's grey, Irish eyes were at the moment a little speculative, touched with a dispa.s.sionate curiosity and a good deal of sisterly and wifely and maternal and slightly compa.s.sionate affection. She was so fond of them all, the dear babes.

Peter had gone on from _osele_ to ivory plaques. He was not quite so much interested in reading about them because he knew more about them for himself, but he took down the name of a dealer who had, according to the Gem, some good specimens, and said he should take Leslie there too.

Hilary got up rather suddenly, and jerked his cigar away into a corner (marble floors are useful in some ways) and said, "Is Leslie going to buy the whole place up? I'm sick of these wealthy Jews. They're ruining Venice. Buying all the palaces, you know. I suppose Leslie'll be wanting to do that next. There's altogether too much buying in this forsaken world. Why can't people admire without wanting to acquire? Lord Evelyn can't. The squandering old fool; he's ruining himself over things he's too blind even to look at properly. And this Leslie of yours, who can't even appreciate, still must get and have, of course; and the more he gets the more he wants. Can't you stop him, Peter? It's such a monstrous exhibition of the vice of the age."

"It's not my profession to stop him," Peter said. "And, after all, why shouldn't they? If it makes them happy--well--" His finality conveyed his creed; if it makes them happy, what else is there? To be happy is to have reached the goal. Peter was a little sad about Hilary, who seemed as far as ever from that goal. Why? Peter wondered. Couldn't one be happy in this lovable water-city, which had, after all, green ways of shadow and gloom between the peeling brick walls of ancient houses, and, beyond, the broad s.p.a.ces of the sea? Couldn't one be happy here even if the babies did poise muddy feet on a table-cloth, not, after all, otherwise clean; and even if the poor boarders wouldn't pay their rent and the rich Jews would buy palaces and plaques? Bother the vice of the age, thought Peter, as he crossed the sun-bathed piazza and suddenly smelt the sea. There surely never was such a jolly world made as this, which had Venice in it for laughter and breathless wonder and delight, and her Duomo shining like a jewel.

"An' the sun shinin' on the gilt front an' all," murmured Peter. "I call it just sweet."

He went in (he was to meet Leslie there), and the soft dusk rippled about him, and beyond the great pillars stretched the limitless, hazy horizons of a dream.

Presently Leslie came. He had an open "Stones of Venice" in his hand, and said, "Now for those mosaics." Leslie was a business-like person, who wasted no time. So they started on the mosaics, and did them for an hour.

Leslie said, "Good. Capital," with the sober, painstaking, conscientious appreciation he was wont to bestow on unpurchasable excellence; and Peter said, "How jolly," and felt glad that there were some excellences unpurchasable even by rich Jews.

They then went to the Accademia and looked at pictures. There Leslie had a clue to merit. "Anything on hinges, I presume," he remarked, "is worth inspection. Only why don't they hinge _more_ of the good ones? They ought to give us a hint; they really ought. How's a man to be sure he's on the right tack?"

After an hour of that they went to see the prince who had the goblet.

Half an hour's conversation with him, and the goblet belonged to Leslie.

It was a glorious thing of deep blue gla.s.s and translucent enamel and silver, with the Berovieri signature cut on it. Peter looked at it much as he had seen a woman in the Duomo look up at her Lady's shrine, much as Rodney had looked on the illumined reality behind the dreaming silver world.

Peter said, "My word, suppose it broke!" It was natural that he should think of that; things so often broke. Only that morning his gold watch had broken, in Illuminato's active hands. Only that afternoon his bootlace had broken, and he had had none to replace it because Caterina had been sailing his other boots in the ca.n.a.l. Peter sighed over the lovely and brittle world.

Then he and Leslie visited Signor Sardi's shop and looked at _osele_ and sixteenth-century visiting cards. Peter said he knew nothing about either personally, but quoted Hilary in the Gem, to Leslie's satisfaction.

"Your brother's a good man," said Leslie. "Knows what's what, doesn't he?

If he says these are good _osele_, we may take it that they _are_ good _osele_, though we don't know one _osele_ from another. That's right, isn't it?"

Peter said he supposed it was, if one wanted _osele_ at all, which personally he didn't care about; but one never knew, of course, what might come in useful. Anyhow Leslie bought some, and a visiting card belonging to the Count Amadeo Vasari, which gave him much satisfaction.

Then they visited the person who, the Gem had said, had good plaques, and inspected them critically. Then they had tea at Sant' Ortes' tearoom, and then Peter went home.

Hilary, who was looking worried, said, "Lord Evelyn wants us to dine with him to-night," and pa.s.sed Peter a note in delicate, shaky handwriting.

"Good," said Peter. Hilary wore a bored look and said, "I suppose we must go," and then proceeded to question Peter concerning Leslie's shopping adventures. He seemed on the whole more interested in the purchase of _osele_ than of the Berovieri goblet.

"But," said Peter presently, "your plaque friend wasn't in form to-day.

He had only shams. Rather bright shams, but still--So we didn't get any, which, I suppose, will please you to hear. Leslie was disappointed. I told your friend we would look in on a better day, when he had some of the real thing. He wasn't pleased. I expect he pa.s.ses off numbers of those things on people as antiques. You ought to qualify your remarks in the Gem, Hilary--add that Signor Leroni has to be cautiously dealt with--or you'll be letting the uncritical plaque-buyer through rather badly."

"I daresay they can look after themselves," Hilary said, easily; and Peggy added:

"After all, so long as they _are_ uncritical, it can't matter to them what sort of a plaque they get!" which of course, was one point of view.

CHAPTER VII

DIANA, ACTaeON, AND LORD EVELYN

Hilary and Peter gondoled to Lord Evelyn Urquhart's residence, a rather exquisite little old palace called Ca' delle Gemme, and were received affectionately by the tall, slim, dandified-looking young-old man, with his white ringed hands and high sweet voice and courtly manner. He had aged since Peter remembered him; the slim hands were shakier and the near-sighted eyes weaker and the delicate face more deeply lined with the premature lines of dissipation and weak health. He put his monocle in his left eye and smiled at Peter, with the old charming smile that was like his nephew's, and tilted to and fro on his heels.