CHAPTER XV
Signor Vanni, full of importance and inwardly delighted at the accident which had placed the hero of the hour in his hands, gathered up his portfolio and descended nimbly on to the platform with a suave:
"If Monsieur le Marquis will deign to wait?"
He was off, crying lustily for the station-master.
McTaggart drew out his watch. It was nearly four o'clock. He felt hungry but his weariness had passed, killed by his present sense of excitement. The air, crisp and sweet, blew in his face like frozen honey, the night was still; and through the dark he could just make out the sheltering walls rising black and sheer with a crenellated edge against the indigo of the sky, where a single luminous star was poised.
The lawyer returned with a bowing superintendent, two bowing servants and a bowing porter.
McTaggart's cap was busy again as the little group fussed about him.
He found himself at last in a vast landau, the lawyer facing him, two men on the box and a third individual mounted behind on a narrow platform between the wheels. "Like the Lord Mayor!" he said to himself and checked a wild desire to laugh.
They rumbled on through deserted streets, dark and narrow, mounted a hill, turned to the left, past a Hotel where lights were gleaming, and on again.
"The Signora Marchesa," said the lawyer, "makes her compliments and is looking forward to receive Monsieur le Marquis in the morning. The hour being so late, he would wish to sleep and, doubtless, prefers this arrangement. She asked Giuseppe to deliver the message."
"Very thoughtful of my aunt." McTaggart felt relieved at the news.
They twisted down between high houses and then there came a sudden halt. Lanterns flashed out. Peering eagerly, he saw a massive doorway before him, flanked by windows narrow and deep with spiked bars, rusty from age. With a hollow echo they drove through the arch and emerged into an inner court, vast and full of shadows thrown by the high walls on every side.
In the centre a fountain towered up: dolphins massed with icicles and a deep basin covered with frost supported by crouching griffins.
The carriage encircled it and stopped. The door was opened. McTaggart descended.
He found himself gazing at a marble staircase, silvery-white, with shallow steps that curved round like a parchment scroll, fairy-like, against the night.
He passed up like a man in a dream. It led to a long gallery on the first floor, dim and high, open on one side to the air and laced with slender twisted columns. Where these supported the domed roof arches formed and the carved points bit into the outer dark like sharp teeth nibbling the heart of the sky.
A bell tolled with a sweet, low note and the entrance doors were flung wide. With a sudden sense of warmth and light he passed through into the palace.
Walls hung with tapestry, a painted ceiling, myriad candles glimmering in crystal lustres...
For a second McTaggart stood there, dazed. He felt an odd lump rise in his throat. Then Signor Vanni touched his arm with a whispered word of apology.
"If Monsieur le Marquis would speak to Beppo? Beppo was there in his mother's time."
"Mia madre..." The long-forgotten words rose from the mirage of the past. He looked down into a wrinkled face: an old, old man in shabby livery. The next moment his hand went out and was held in the shaky clasp of age.
"Mother of all the Saints! Her face!" Tears were in the dim old eyes. "Ahi!—she was a Saint herself. A thousand humble welcomes 'a Lei'! He must forgive this old man who worships his blesséd lady's memory ... God be praised that I see this day..."
"Basta ... Basta!" Vanni checked him as the soft Italian speech flowed on, unintelligible to McTaggart, smiling down at the faithful servant. "The Signor Marchese is tired and would sleep."
The "maestro di casa" effaced himself, leading the way, on tottering feet, through a long suite of rooms, into a corridor lined with statues and Etruscan pottery.
They came at last to narrow stairs, built in the thickness of the wall, mounted these to another passage and paused before a double door.
Within was a bedroom with marble floor and deep-set windows draped with silk. A stove was burning and candles gleamed, but the place felt cheerless and rather damp: magnificent, but strangely bare, the high walls discolored with age.
Another servant appeared with a tray and a steaming tureen of thick red soup. McTaggart welcomed it where he sat at a round table before the stove with sandwiches and fruit arranged in heavy dishes of silver-gilt.
The bread, he thought, tasted sour, but when the man filled his glass with a golden wine, clear and sparkling, he drank it down and his eyes shone.
"What is it?" he asked Vanni—"not champagne?" The lawyer smiled.
"Asti Spumante—The late Marquis was well known for his cellar. And the dried figs and oranges and the goat's milk cheese are from the estate."
"Excellent." McTaggart approved. "Won't you have a glass with me?"
The old man was visibly pleased. He propounded an elaborate toast.
"And now, I think, with his permission, I will retire." He bowed low. "May pleasant dreams wait on slumber." The door closed gently behind him.
McTaggart drew a deep breath, glad at last to be alone. He finished the wine and began to smoke, his cold feet planted against the stove.
He could not quite free himself from the spell of a fairy-tale; this strange arrival in the night into a mediæval land.
He glanced round him at the room, with its painted ceiling and comfortless floor and the huge bed of gilded wood shrouded with blue brocade.
He began sleepily to undress, but a low tap came at the door.
"Come in!—Entrez!—whatever's the word?"
Beppo appeared with a slim, dark youth.
"Ecco Mario." He explained. The newcomer bowed and stood, expectant, gazing respectfully at his bewildered new master.
McTaggart hunted for a phrase.
"Non capisco." He looked triumphant and immediately old Beppo smiled and fell back on pantomime.
He turned and took from Mario a long garment in thin batiste, embroidered at the neck and wrist, with a breast-pocket where a monogram was worked beneath a tiny coronet.
McTaggart struggled with his mirth. It was evident that his own luggage had been delayed at the closed Customs. This was a relic of his Uncle, destined for his use that night.
Mario bowed and disappeared to return with a small jug of hot water, ivory brushes and other articles destined for his master's toilette.
Solemnly he arranged the room while Beppo cleared the supper table. Then, to McTaggart's vast relief, both men wished him "good repose."
He locked the door and hastily slipped out of his remaining clothes, proceeding to encase himself in the ridiculous thin night-shirt.
"Can't say much for my Uncle's taste!—it's only fit for a ballet dancer!" He caught sight of himself in the glass and chuckled with a faint disgust. The batiste strained on his broad chest and beneath the folds his legs appeared, long and sinewy. He shivered.
"Brr!—this is the limit!"
He drew it up above his knees and gingerly clambered on to his bed; snuggled down among the pillows, thankful for the eider down.
The candle beside him was still alight and, before he leaned to blow it out, he glanced upward curiously at the dark draperies overhead.
And then he started.
For on the ceiling a shadow lay, huge, grotesque: the shadow of a mighty crown! A sudden memory assailed him.
He looked closer. The curtains were drawn into a knot and held in place by a heavy ring of gilded wood, carved into a coronet.
What was it the gipsy had said?
"There's fortune coming over-seas ... and a castle, my fine gentleman..."
Again he heard the husky voice crooning above his outstretched hand.
And he stared at the ceiling, his eyes wide.
For there it hung ... his "golden crown!"