‘Oh, I went to the castle and rang the bell, and asked if the Earl of Simonstower was at home,’ Lucian replied. ‘And I told the footman my name, and he went away, and then came back and told me to follow him, and he took me into a big study where there was an old, very cross-looking old gentleman in an old-fashioned coat writing letters. He had very keen eyes....’
‘Ah, indeed!’ interrupted Mr. Pepperdine. ‘Like a hawk’s!’
‘...and he stared at me,’ continued Lucian, ‘and I stared at him. And then he said, “Well, my boy, what do you want?” and I said, “Please, if you are the Earl of Simonstower, I want to see the picture you bought from my father some years ago.” Then he stared harder than ever, and he said, “Are you Cyprian Damerel’s son?” and I said “Yes.” He pointed to a chair and told me to sit down, and he talked about my father and his work, and then he took me out to look at the pictures. He wanted to know if I, too, was going to paint, and I had to tell him that I couldn’t draw at all, and that I meant to be a poet. Then he showed me his library, or a part of it—I stopped with him a long time, and he shook hands with me when I left, and said I might go again whenever I wished to.’
‘Hear, hear!’ said Mr. Pepperdine. ‘It’s very evident there’s a soft spot somewhere in the old gentleman’s heart.’
‘And what did his lordship talk to you about?’ asked Miss Pepperdine, who had sufficiently recovered from her surprise to resume her dinner. ‘I hope you said “my lord” and “your lordship” when you spoke to him?’
‘No, I didn’t, because I didn’t know,’ said Lucian. ‘I said “sir,” because he was an old man. Oh, we talked about Italy—fancy, he hasn’t been in Italy for twenty years!—and he asked me a lot of questions about several things, and he got me to translate a letter for him which he had just received from a professor at Florence—his own Italian, he said, is getting rusty.’
‘And could you do it?’ asked Miss Pepperdine.
Lucian stared at her with wide-open eyes.
‘Why, yes,’ he answered. ‘It is my native tongue. I know much, much more Italian than English. Sometimes I cannot find the right word in English—it is a difficult language to learn.’
Lucian’s adventures of his first morning pleased Mr. Pepperdine greatly. He chuckled to himself as he smoked his after-dinner pipe—the notion of his nephew bearding the grim old earl in his tumble-down castle was vastly gratifying and amusing: it was also pleasing to find Lucian treated with such politeness. As the Earl of Simonstower’s tenant Mr. Pepperdine had much respect but little affection for his titled neighbour: the old gentleman was arbitrary and autocratic and totally deaf to whatever might be said to him about bad times. Mr. Pepperdine was glad to get some small change out of the earl through his nephew.