Now has there happened to me one of the strangest adventures of my strange life, and before I sleep I have determined to note it down, for no other reason than this: that my waking thoughts to-morrow will refuse to credit mere memory, without some such corroboration. Nay, I have another witness—this glove!
Were it not for this, I should have chronicled our féte which really was far more successful than such things usually are. Not only was there no contretemps, but all went off well and pleasantly. The men were witty and good-tempered; the women—albeit many of them handsome—were aimable, and disposed to be pleased; the weather and the champagne were perfect. They who could eat—which I couldn’t—say, that Gougon was admirable; and the band played some of Donizetti’s pieces with great precision and effect. Ainsi, the elements were all favourable; each instrument filled its part; and the ensemble was good—rather a rare event where people come out expressly bent on enjoyment, and determined to take pleasure by storm. Premeditated happiness, like marriage for love, is often too much premeditated. Here, however, “the gods were propitious.” Unlike most picnics, there neither was rain nor rancour; and considering that we had specimens of at least half-a-dozen different nationalities, and frequently as many different languages going at once, there was much amusing conversation, and a great deal of pleasant, gossip-ping anecdote: not that regular story-telling which depends upon its stage-effect of voice and manner, but that far more agreeable kind of narrative that claims interest from being about people and places that we know beforehand, conveying traits of character and mind of well-known persons, always amusing and interesting.
There was a French secretary of legation for Berne, a most pleasant convive; and the Austrian general was equally amusing. Some of his anecdotes of the campaign of 1805 were admirable: by the way, he felt dreadfully shocked at his own confession that he remembered Wagram. The Countess Giordani came late. We were returning from our ramble among rocks and cliffs when she appeared.
I did not wish to be presented; I preferred rather the part of observing her, which acquaintance would have prevented. But old Lady B—— did not give me the choice: she took my arm, and, after a little tour through the company, came directly in front of the Countess, saying, with a bluntness all her own,—
“Madame la Comtesse, let me present a friend whose long residence in your country gives him almost the claim of a countryman:—M, Templeton.”
If I was not unmoved by the suddenness of this introduction—appealing as it did, to me at least, to old memories—the Countess was composure itself: a faint smile in acknowledgment of the speech, a gentle expression of easy satisfaction on meeting one who had visited her country, were all that even my prying curiosity could detect.
“What part of Sicily have you seen?” said she to me.
“My friend Lady B——,” said I, “has made me a greater traveller than I can pretend to be: I have been no further south than Naples.”
“Oh! I am not Neapolitan,” said she, hastily, and with an air like disappointment.
I watched her closely as she spoke, and at once said to myself, “No! this is not, this cannot be, Caroline Graham.”