The coachman drew up his horses before the castle gateway, wheretheir hoofs beat a sort of fanfare on the stone pavement; and thefootman, letting himself smartly down, pulled, with a peremptorygesture that was just not quite a swagger, the bronze hand at theend of the dangling bell-cord.
Seated alone in her great high-swung barouche, in the sweetApril weather, Lady Blanchemain gave the interval that followed toa consideration of the landscape: first, sleeping in shadowystillness, the formal Italian garden, its terraced lawns andmetrical parterres, its straight dark avenues of ilex, itscypresses, fountains, statues, balustrades; and then, laughing inthe breeze and the sun, the wild Italian valley, a forest ofblossoming fruit-trees, with the river winding and glinting in itsmidst, with olive-clad hills blue-grey at either side, and beyondthe hills, peering over their shoulders, the snow-peaks ofmountains, crisp against the sky, and in the level distance thehazy shimmer of the lake.
"It is lovely," she exclaimed, fervently, in a whisper,"lovely.—And only a generation of blind-worms," was herafter-thought, "could discern in it the slightest resemblance tothe drop-scene of a theatre."
Big, humorous, emotional, imperious, but, above all, interestedand sociable Lady Blanchemain: do you know her, I wonder? Herbillowy white hair? Her handsome soft old face, with its smoothskin, and the good strong bony structure underneath? Her beautifulold grey eyes, full of tenderness and shrewdness, of curiosity,irony, indulgence, overarched and emphasized by regular blackeyebrows? Her pretty little plump pink-white hands, (like twolittle elderly Cupids), with their shining panoply of rings? Andher luxurious, courageous, high-hearted manner of dressing? Thelight colours and jaunty fashion of her gowns? Her laces, ruffles,embroideries? Her gay little bonnets? Her gems? Linda BaronessBlanchemain, of Fring Place, Sussex; Belmore Gardens, Kensington;and Villa Antonina, San Remo: big, merry, sociable, sentimental,worldly-wise, impetuous Linda Blanchemain: do you know her? If youdo, I am sure you love her and rejoice in her; and enough is said.If you don't, I beg leave to present and to commend her.
I spoke, by the bye, of her "old" face, her "old" eyes. She is,to be sure, in so far as mere numbers of years tell, an old woman.But I once heard her throw out, in the heat of conversation, thephrase, "a young old thing like me;" and I thought she touched atruth.
Well, then, the footman, in his masterful way, pulled thebell-cord; Lady Blanchemain contemplated the landscape, and had heropinion of a generation that could liken it to the drop-scene of atheatre; and in due process of things the bell was answered.
It was answered by a man in a costume that struck my humorousold friend as pleasing: a sallow little man whose otherwise quitefeatureless suit of tweeds was embellished by sc