South Wind | Page 4

laugh. "That is as it
should be, is it not? We like our elders to be conservative. They
counteract the often violent modernism of the youngsters. Is this your
first visit to Nepenthe?"
"It is. I have heard much about the beauty of the place."
"You will like it. The people are intelligent. There is good food and
wine. Our lobsters are celebrated. You will find compatriots on the
island, some ladies among them; the Duchess of San Martino, for
instance, who happens to be an American; some delightful ladies! And
the country girls, too, are worthy of a benevolent glance--"
"That procession is sure to interest me. What is the name of your
patron?"
"Saint Dodekanus. He has a wonderful history. There is an Englishman
on Nepenthe, Mr. Earnest Eames, a student, who will tell you all about
it. He knows more about the saint than I do; one would think he dined
with him every evening. But he is a great hermit--Mr. Eames, I mean.
And it is so good of our old bishop to come over," he pursued with a
shade of emphasis. "His work keeps him mostly on the mainland. He
has a large see--nearly thirty square miles. How large, by the way, is
your diocese?"

"I cannot give you the exact figures," Mr. Heard replied. "It has often
taken me three weeks to travel from one end to the other. It is probably
not much smaller than the kingdom of Italy."
"The kingdom of Italy. Indeed!"
That settled it. The conversation died abruptly; the friendly priest
relapsed into silence. He looked hurt and disappointed. This was more
than a joke. He had done his best to be civil to a suffering foreigner,
and this was his reward--to be fooled with the grossest of fables. Maybe
he remembered other occasions when Englishmen had developed a
queer sense of humour which he utterly failed to appreciate. A liar. Or
possibly a lunatic; one of those harmless enthusiasts who go about the
world imagining themselves to be the Pope or the Archangel Gabriel.
However that might be, he said not another word, but took to reading
his breviary in good earnest, for the first time.
The boat anchored. Natives poured out in a stream. Mr. Muhlen drove
up alone, presumably to his sumptuous hotel. The bishop, having
gathered his luggage together, followed in another carriage. He enjoyed
the drive along that winding upward track; he admired the festal
decorations of the houses, the gardens and vineyards, the many-tinted
rock scenery overhead, the smiling sunburnt peasantry. There was an
air of contentment and well-being about the place; something joyful,
opulent, almost dramatic.
"I like it," he concluded.
And he wondered how long it would be before he met his cousin, Mrs.
Meadows, on whose account he had undertaken to break the journey to
England.
Don Francesco, the smiling priest, soon outstripped both of them, in
spite of a ten minutes' conversation on the quay with the pretty peasant
girl of the steamer. He had engaged the fastest driver on the island, and
was now tearing frantically up the road, determined to be the first to
apprise the Duchess of the lunatic's arrival.

CHAPTER II

The Duchess of San Martino, a kind-hearted and imposing lady of
mature age who, under favourable atmospheric conditions (in
winter-time, for instance, when the powder was not so likely to run
down her face), might have passed, so far as profile was concerned, for
a faded French beauty of bygone centuries--the Duchess was no
exception to the rule.
It was an old rule. Nobody knew when it first came into vogue. Mr.
Eames, bibliographer of Nepenthe, had traced it down to the second
Phoenician period, but saw no reason why the Phoenicians, more than
anybody else, should have established the precedent. On the contrary,
he was inclined to think that it dated from yet earlier days; days when
the Troglodytes, Manigones, Septocardes, Merdones, Anthropophagoi
and other hairy aboriginals used to paddle across, in crazy canoes, to
barter the produce of their savage African glens-serpent-skins, and
gums, and gazelle horns, and ostrich eggs--for those super-excellent
lobsters and peasant girls for which Nepenthe had been renowned from
time immemorial. He based this scholarly conjecture on the fact that a
gazelle horn, identified as belonging to a now extinct Tripolitan species,
was actually discovered on the island, while an adolescent female skull
of the hypo-dolichocephalous (Nepenthean) type had come to light in
some excavations at Benghazi.
It was a pleasant rule. It ran to the effect that in the course of the
forenoon all the inhabitants of Nepenthe, of whatever age, sex, or
condition, should endeavour to find themselves in the market-place or
piazza--a charming square, surrounded on three sides by the principal
buildings of the town and open,