The Man from Home by Harry Leon Wilson (book series to read .TXT) 📕
- Author: Harry Leon Wilson
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[looking at his watch]
Set déjeuner on [pg 019] the terrace instantly when he arrive: a perch, petit pois, iced figs, tea. I will send his own caviar and vodka from the supplies I carry.
I set for one?
For two. He desires that the North American breakfast with him. Do not forget that the incognito is to be absolute.
[Exit into hotel.]
Va bene, Signore!
[Puts finishing-touches to the table.]
[Enter from the grove, LORD HAWCASTLE. He is a well-preserved man of fifty-six with close-clipped gray mustache and gray hair; his eyes are quick and shrewd; his face shows some slight traces of high living; he carries himself well and his general air is distinguished and high-bred. He wears a suit of thinly striped white flannel and white shoes, a four-in-hand tie of pale old-rose crape, a Panama hat with broad ribbon striped with white and old-rose of the same shade as his tie. His accent is that of a man of the world, and quite without affectation. [pg 020] He comes at once upon his entrance to a chair at the table.]
[MICHELE enters at same time up left, with a folded newspaper.]
[as he enters]
Good-morning, Mariano!
[bowing]
Milor' Hawcastle is serve.
[Takes HAWCASTLE'S hat and places it upon a stool behind table.]
[hands HAWCASTLE newspaper from under his arm]
Il Mattino, the morning journal from Napoli, Milor'.
[accepting paper and unfolding it]
No English papers?
Milor', the mail is late.
[Exit up left.]
[sitting]
And Madame de Champigny?
[MARIANO serves coffee, etc.]
[As HAWCASTLE speaks the COMTESSE DE CHAMPIGNY enters from hotel. She is a pretty Frenchwoman of thirty-two. She wears a fashionable summer Parisian morning dress, light and gay in color, a short-sleeved little Empire jacket, and long [pg 021] gloves. She carries a parasol. Her elaborately dressed hair is surmounted by a jaunty Parisian toque.]
[lifting her hand gayly as she enters, and striking a little attitude before she descends the steps]
Me voici!
[half rising and bowing]
My esteemed relative is still asleep?
[speaking gayly, with a very slight accent, as she crosses to a chair at the table]
I trust your beautiful son has found much better employment—as our hearts would wish him to.
He has. He's off on a canter with the little American, thank God!
[interjecting the word]
Bravo!
[She turns the hands of her gloves back and sips coffee, MARIANO serving.]
[continuing]
But I didn't mean Almeric. I meant my august sister-in-law.
[He reads the paper.]
[smiling]
The amiable Lady Victoria Hermione Trevelyan Creech has déjeuner in her apartment. What you find to read?
I'm such a duffer at Italian, but [pg 022] apparently the people along the coast are having a scare over an escaped convict—a Russian.
[starting slightly, drops a spoon noisily upon a plate on the table]
Pardon, Milor'!
[setting down her coffee abruptly]
A Russian?
[translating with difficulty]
"An escaped Russian bandit has been traced to Castellamare—"
[Pauses.]
[awe-struck]
Castellamare—not twelve kilometres from here!
[continuing]
"—and a confidential agent"—
[looking up]
—secret-service man, I dare say—"has requested his arrest. But the brigand tore himself"—
[repeating slowly]
—"tore himself"—What the deuce does that mean?
[bowing]
Pardon, Milor'—if I might—
Quite right, Mariano!
[Handing him the paper.]
Translate for us.
[reading rapidly, but with growing agitation which he tries to conceal]
"The brigan' tore himself from the hands of the carabiniere and without the doubts he conceal himself in some of those grotto near Sorrento and searchment is being execute'. [pg 023] The agent of the Russian embassy have inform' the bureau that this escaped one is a mos' in-fay-mose robber and danger brigand."
[quickly]
What name does the journal say he has?
[hurriedly]
It has not to say. That is all. Will Milor' and Madame la Comtesse excuse me? And may I take the journal? There is one who should see it.
[indifferently]
Very well.
Thank you, Milor'!
[Bows hastily and hurries out up left.]
[gravely, drawing back from the table.]
I should like much to know his name.
[smiling, and eating composedly]
You may be sure it isn't Ivanoff.
[not changing her attitude]
How can one know it is not
[pauses and speaks the name very gravely]
Ivanoff?
[laughing]
He wouldn't be called an infamous brigand.
[very gravely]
That, my friend, may be only Italian journalism.
Pooh! This means a highwayman—
[finishes [pg 024] his coffee coolly]
—not—not an embezzler, Hélène.
[taking a deep breath and sinking back in her chair with a fixed gaze]
I am glad to believe it, but I care for no more to eat. I have some foolish feeling of unsafety. It is now two nights that I dream of him—of Ivanoff—bad dreams for us both, my friend.
[laughing]
What rot! It takes more than a dream to bring a man back from Siberia.
Then I pray there has been no more than dreams.
[Music of mandolins and guitars heard off to the right with song—"The Fisherman's Song."]
[Enter ETHEL gayly and quickly from the grove, her face radiant. She is a very pretty American girl of twenty. She wears a light-brown linen skirted coat, fitting closely, and a country riding-skirt of the same material and color, with boots, a shirt-waist, collar and tie, and three-cornered hat. She carries a riding-crop. She is followed by three musicians (two mandolins and [pg 025] a guitar), who laughingly continue the song. They are shabby fellows, two of them barefooted, wearing shabby, patched velveteen trousers and blue flannel shirts open at the throat, with big black hats, old and shapeless. One makes a low and sweeping bow before ETHEL; she takes money from her glove and gives it to him, the other two not discontinuing the song; the three immediately 'bout face and go out gleefully, capering and still singing.]
[who has risen]
The divine Miss Granger-Simpson!
[with a pronounced "English accent"]
The divinely happy Miss Granger-Simpson!
[rising, running to her, and kissing her]
Oh, I hope you mean—
[with some excitement in his voice]
You mean you have made my son divinely happy?
[ETHEL, as he speaks, extricates herself laughingly from MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY.]
Is not every one happy in Sorrento—
[with a wave of her riding-crop]
—even your son?[pg 026]
[Exit laughingly and hurriedly into the hotel.]
[MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY goes to stool behind table and gets her parasol, as HAWCASTLE resumes his seat.]
Ah! that is good. Listen!
[A piano sounds from the room ETHEL has just entered, breaking loudly and gayly into Chaminade's "Elevation." ETHEL'S voice is heard for a moment, also, singing.]
She has flown to her piano. It looks well, indeed—our little enterprise.
[grimly]
It's time. If Almeric had been anything but a clumsy oof he'd have made her settle it weeks ago!
[quickly]
You are invidious, mon ami! My affair is not settled—am I a clumsy oof?
[leaning toward her across the table and speaking sharply and earnestly]
No, Hélène. Your little American, brother Horace, is so in love with you, if you asked him suddenly, "Is this day or night?" he would answer, "It's Hélène." But [pg 027] he's too shy to speak. You're a woman—you can't press matters; but Almeric's a man—he can. He can urge an immediate marriage, which means an immediate settlement, and a direct one.
[seriously, quickly]
It will not be small, that settlement?
[He shakes his head grimly, leaning back to look at her. She continues eagerly.]
You have decide' what sum?
[He nods decidedly.]
What?
[sharply, with determination, yet quietly]
A hundred and fifty thousand pounds!
[excited and breathless]
My friend! Will she?
[Turns and stares toward ETHEL'S room, where the piano is still heard softly playing.]
Not for Almeric, but to be the future Countess of Hawcastle. My sister-in-law hasn't been her chaperone for a year for nothing. And, by Jove, she hasn't done it for nothing, either!
[He laughs grimly, moving back from the table.]
But she's deserved all I shall allow her.[pg 028]
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