“He’s the brother of the little person I took you to see over the river—the chattering cripple with the wonderful manners.”
“Ah she had a brother! That then was why you went?”
It was striking, the good humour with which the Princess received this rather coarse thrust, which could have been drawn from Madame Grandoni only by the petulance and weariness of increasing age and the antipathy she now felt to Madeira Crescent and everything it produced. Christina bent a calm, charitable smile on her ancient support and replied: “There could have been no question of our seeing him. He was of course at his work.”
“Ah how do I know, my dear? And is he a successor?”
“A successor?”
“To the little bookbinder.”
“Mia cara,” said the Princess, “you’ll see how absurd that question is when I tell you he’s his greatest friend!”
XXXVII
Half an hour after the departure of the young chemical expert she heard another rat-tat-tat at her door; but this was a briefer, discreeter peal and was accompanied by a faint tintinnabulation. The person who had produced it was presently ushered in, without, however, causing Madame Grandoni to look round, or rather to look up, from an armchair as low as a sitz-bath and of very much the shape of such a receptacle, in which, near the fire, she had been immersed. She left this care to the Princess, who rose on hearing the name of the visitor pronounced inadequately by her maid. “Mr. Fetch,” Assunta called it; but that functionary’s mistress recognised without difficulty the little fat “reduced” fiddler of whom Hyacinth had talked to her, who, as Pinnie’s most intimate friend, had been so mixed up with his existence, and whom she herself had always had a curiosity to see. Hyacinth had not told her he was coming, and the unexpectedness of the apparition added to its interest. Much as she liked seeing queer types and exploring out-of-the-way social corners, she never engaged in a fresh encounter nor formed a new relation of this kind without a fit of nervousness, a fear she might herself be wanting, might fail to hit the right tone. She perceived in a moment, however, that Mr. Vetch would take her as she was and require no special adjustments; he was a gentleman and a man of experience and she should only have to leave the tone to him. He stood there with his large polished hat in his two hands, a hat of the fashion of ten years before, with a rusty sheen and an undulating brim—stood there without a salutation or a speech, but with a small fixed, acute, tentative smile which seemed half to interrogate and half to explain. What he explained, at all events, was that he was clever enough to be trusted and that if he had called this way, without ceremony and without an invitation, he had a reason which she would be sure to think good enough when she should hear it. There was even a certain jauntiness in his confidence—an insinuation that he knew how to present himself to a lady; and though it quickly appeared that he really did, this was the only thing about him that was inferior. It suggested a long experience of actresses at rehearsal, with whom he had formed habits of advice and compliment.
“I know who you are—I know who you are,” said the Princess, though she could easily see he knew she did.