The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti Part 3

'If you'll excuse me, sir,' she said, 'I think I could propose an arrangement as would suit. The ladies below give warning last week, because the rooms they've got is too expensive.

Now, this little room would do nicely for 'em, with the next, which I shall be glad and thankful for a chance of giving Mr. Jinks his warning,' (Jinks was a drunken tailor, my next-room neighbour.) 'Now, sir, if the rooms below will suit you----'

I told her I was sure they would, and asked her if she would broach the question with the ladies. She went down at once, and came back shortly to ask when it would be convenient for me to remove my things. I said 'at any moment,' There was so little property between us all three, that it was transferred without much trouble in a few minutes. The landlady agreed that Mr. Jinks should have other accommodation secured for him in the house until the end of the next week; and for a single day the ladies were to make themselves at home in this one old room of mine.

Miss Grammont came up the stairs with difficulty, and asked--

'When shall you wish to remove your piano, signor?'

Now, I had already proposed to myself a great pleasure.

'Permit me, madame,' I answered, 'to leave it here for a little time, until I can arrange my rooms.'

'Certainly,' the lady answered.

'And if madame or her sister play, it will improve the piano to be played upon, and I shall be vastly gratified.'

Cecilia thanked me with so much energy that I was a.s.sured that she was a devotee to music.

'Would she play?' I asked; and she consented.

She was shy before me, but so eager to put her fingers on the keys that she conquered all diffidence and went at once to the piano.

When she had played a Sonata of Haydn's, I turned in my enthusiastic way to her sister and said how I rejoiced to have been able to gratify genius.

'Genius is a very large word,' said Miss Grammont. Cecilia was playing something else, and had not heard me.

'Genius _is_ a large word, madame,' I replied. 'But is not that a large style? Is it not a n.o.ble style?'

Cecilia, she allowed, played very finely.

'Finely, madame? 'I respectfully protested--'she should play among the seraphs. You shall allow me, madame. I am no mean musician. As a critic I am exact and exacting. Permit me, madame, that I bring my violin, and play once with Mademoiselle Cecilia.'

She consented. I brought my violin and we played. Cecilia's musical memory is prodigious. Mine is also retentive and precise. But she had too much inventive genius for precision, unless the notes were before her, and sometimes I corrected her. Next, this delicious interlude over, I begged that the ladies would do me the honour to dine with me.

'You must not be extravagant in your good fortune, signor,' Miss Grammont said.

'Trust me, madame,' I answered. 'If the day has dawned, I will hasten no new night and make no artificial curtains.'

Then I went down to paint, and at seven o'clock they joined me at dinner. The meal was sent in from the famous tavern hard by, and I think I may say we all enjoyed it. And then came music, and for an hour we were happy.

CHAPTER III.--AT POSILIPO.

Ay me, for one hour we were happy, and for many hours thereafter. But when your heart is glad, when you drink the wine of joy, there is Madame Circ.u.mstance keeping the score, and she brings in the bill at the end of the banquet, and you pay it in coin of sorrow. She is my old enemy, this Madame Circ.u.mstance, as I have told you. It is not always that I can defy her. Who is it that is always brave? Not I. But I shall be brave again in the morning, and the battle will begin again, and I shall win. Pah! I have won already. I have smoked my pipe, and the incense of victory curls about my head just now, at this moment. There is no friend like your pipe. None.

Ten minutes ago I was despondent when; I sat down to write. I broke off and smoked, and I am my own man again. (Regard once more the beautiful English idiom, and the smiling soul which so soon after battle can take delight in verbal felicities.)

Now I will go on with my story. It takes a long time to write. It will be twelve months to-morrow since I last looked at the pages of this narrative. I may not touch it again after to-day for a year. Who knows?

I went to Mr. Gregory's house in West-bourne Terrace on Friday, and I continued to go there on Friday evenings until the close of the season.

Mr. Gregory is no more my patron, only: he is now my friend, and his friendship is firm and true. I shall be honest in saying that to me those Friday evenings were very beautiful. It was so great a change from the hungry and lonely nights in my attic, to find myself back again with ladies and gentlemen, myself well dressed and at home, and no longer hungry. There I was admired and _feted_, and all people made much of me.

I played and sang, and the people talked of my pictures, and everywhere I was asked out, until I could have spent my every hour in those calm social dissipations which make up so large a share of life in all refined societies. For my friend Gregory is a man of refinement--within himself--and his friends are all artistic and literary.. But why should I talk about him? Everybody knows him. Gregory the millionaire; Gregory the connoisseur in wines, in pictures, in old violins, in pottery; the Connoisseur in humanity at whose gatherings the wisest and the most charming meet each other. Gregory the ship-builder, iron-master, coal-owner; architect of himself--a splendid edifice. That such a man should have bought my pictures was of itself a fortune to me. I am on my way to get riches, and my balance at-the bank is already respectable.

Why, then, should I be at battle with Madame Circ.u.mstance? You shall see.

One day at the beginning of this year he called to see me. I was hard at work making the best of the few hours of light. He sat and watched for a full hour, talking very little. At last he said--

'I can trust you, Calvotti. I want you to do me a service.'

'I am very heartily glad to hear it,' I answered.

'You won't understand what I want you to do unless I tell you the whole story,' he said, after a pause. Then he remained silent for some time.

'Put down your brushes and listen,' he went on.

I obeyed him. He lit a cigar, poured out a gla.s.s of claret, crossed his legs, and talked easily, though at times I could see that he felt strongly.

'I have had a good many friendly acquaintances in my life, and one friend: he died five years ago. I was abroad at the time, in Russia, laying down a railway. My friend, whom everybody supposed to be fairly well-to-do, died poor. There was one lump sum of money in my hands, placed there by him for investment, and that was almost all he had. By some terrible mischance, the acknowledgment I had given for this lump sum was lost, and his relatives were in ignorance of it. Six months after his death I came home, and finding that nothing had been said of the money he had entrusted to my care, I went to his lawyer and spoke to him about it. My friend had been a widower for the last dozen years. He had three children, and no other relatives in the world. After the sale of his effects, poor fellow, the two girls disappeared utterly. The son, who was a reckless, good-for-nothing scamp, was my poor friend's favourite, and whatever the old man died possessed of went by will to him with a mere injunction to look after his sisters. He had not been heard of for more than a year, but was believed to be somewhere in Italy. The scoundrel professed to be a painter, and might have made a decent sign-writer, if he hadn't been a drunkard. I could not find even him, and the girls have been advertised for, vainly. Now, the lawyer has just received a letter from this young ne'er-do-weel, who wants to borrow money. I will tell you what I want you to do. If this scamp learns that ten thousand pounds belong to him, he will take every penny, though he left the girls to starve. But I want things so managed that he shall share with his sisters--a thing he will be very reluctant to do.

Now, will you go to Naples, find this man out, get to know from him the whereabouts of his sisters, manoeuvre him, and, if possible, induce him to accept half? Will you remember that there is absolutely no receipt in existence for the money which lies in my hand--that I am not legally bound to pay a penny of it? That is my only power over this fellow. Keep my name dark. Let him know there is a certain sum of money--never mind telling him how much--in the hands of a certain person in London, who is willing, on his written undertaking to divide with his sisters whatever his father may have left, to pay over to him his moiety. Let him understand distinctly that the person in whose hands the money lies will not pay him one farthing without this bond unless he produces the receipt given to his father. When you have secured his written undertaking, will you bring him to me? I will be answerable for all your charges in the matter.'

I had listened attentively to this story, and I said Yes, at once. I added, that it seemed to me a very easy task and an honourable one.

'I want it done at once,' he said, 'because I know the girls must be in a very poor position wherever they are. When can you start? There is a tidal train at eight o'clock this evening, and the man is now in Naples.

I have the papers here all ready: you can study them on the way.'

'I will start to-night,' I answered.

'Thank you, Calvotti, thank you,' he said heartily. 'Do you remember how I excused myself for overturning that little girl who was carrying the first picture I ever saw of yours to your estimable uncle round the corner, as you called him?'

'Yes. There was a man in the street you were anxious to speak to, and you jumped from a cab to catch him, and lost sight of him through the accident.'

'That was the man I want you to see--Charles Grammont.'

I had only time to catch at the name and weave Cecilia and her sister into this romance with one throw of the shuttle, when there came a knock at the door.

'Come in,' I said. The door opened, and a man entered. Seeing my patron and myself, he drew back.

'I have made a mistake,' he murmured awkwardly. 'I wish to find Miss Grammont. I was told she lived here.'

'Talk of the devil!' cried my patron. 'Charles Grammont!'

'That is my name,' said the new-comer, standing awkwardly in the doorway. 'You have the advantage of me, sir.'

'H'm!' said my patron, returning to the manner he had first worn in my presence. 'Likely to keep it too. Good-day, Calvotti. You'll remember that little commission. Things may perhaps be easier than I thought they would be.' He muttered this to himself so that the new-comer did not hear him. He pushed uncourteously past the young man and went out.

'You will find Miss Grammont upstairs, sir,' I said. 'If you are Mr.

Charles Grammont, the brother of the ladies upstairs, I shall be glad to speak to you in an hour's time, on a matter of much advantage to you.'