Tellaro was left behind, and the post chaise and four entered on a stretch of flat country which offered little to attract the eye, or occasional remark. Miss Elizabeth withdrew her gaze from the landscape and addressed her companion, a handsome young man who was bored to death in his corner of the chaise somewhat sleepily surveying the back of the nearest post boy.
"Oh, how tedious it is to be sitting still for so many hours at a stretch!" Elizabeth remarked. "When do we reach Florence, Patrick?"Her brother yawned. "Lord, I don't know! It was you who wanted to go to Rome".Miss Elizabeth made no reply to that, but picked up a Traveler's Guide from the seat beside her, and began to flutter the leaves over. Young Sir Patrick Tellaro yawned again, and observed that the new pair of wheelers that had been put in at Tellaro, were good sized strong wheels, very different from the last pair, which had both of them been touched in the wind.Miss Elizabeth was lost in the Traveller's Guide, and agreed to that without raising her eyes from the closely printed page. She was a pretty young woman, rather above the average height, and had been used to hearing herself proclaimed a remarkably beautiful young girl since the last four years. She could not, however, admire her own beauty, which was of a type she was inclined to despise. She preferred that she'd had and thought the brightness of her gold curls insipid. Happily for her, her eyebrows and lashes were dark, and her eyeballs which were startlingly blue - in the manner of a wax doll, as she once scornfully told her brother - had a directness and a fire which gave a great deal of character to her face. At first glance one might write her down as a mere Cadimare miss, but a second glance would inevitably discover the intelligence in her eyes, and the decided air of resolution in the curve of her mouth.She was dressed neatly, but not in the latest style of fashion. She was in a plain round gown of European fabric, the neck was surrounded with lace, and a close mantle of illusion net. A bonnet of basket willow with a striped velvet ribbon rather charmingly framed her face, and a pair of York tan gloves were drawn over her hands, and buttoned tightly round her wrists.Her brother, who had resumed his slumbrous scrutiny of the post boy's back, resembled her closely. His hair was more inclined to brown, and his eyes less deep in color than hers, but he must always be known as her brother. He was a year younger than Miss Elizabeth, and, either from habit or carelessness, was very much in the habit of permitting her to order things around as she chose."It is forty miles from Tellaro to Florence", Miss Elizabeth announced, raising her eyes from the Traveller's Guide. "I didn't think it would be so far". She bent over the book again. "It says here - it is Kingsley's Entertaining Guide, you know, which you procured for me in Baia Blu - that it is a neat and populous town on the River Arno. It is supposed to have been a Roman station, by the remains of a castle which have been dug up. I must say, I would like to explore there if we have the time, Patrick"."Oh, lord, you know ruins always look the same!" Sir Patrick objected, digging his hands into the pockets of his buckskin breeches. "I tell you what it is, Elizabeth: if you are set on poking about all the castles on the way, we shall be a full week on the road. I am for pushing forward to Roma"."Very well", Miss Elizabeth submitted, closing the Traveller's Guide, and dropping it on the seat. "We will pre-order an early breakfast at the Vinaio, then, and you must tell them at what hour you will have the horses ready"."I thought we were supposed to sleep at the Antico", Sir Patrick remarked."No", his sister replied decidedly. "You have forgotten the wretched account the Mincemans gave us of the comfort to be expected there. It is the Vinaio and I already wrote to preserve our rooms, on account of Mrs Minceman warning me of the fuss and to-do she had once experienced, when they would have had her go up two fleet of stairs to a miserable apartment at the back of the house".Sir Patrick turned his head to grin at her amicably. "Well, I don't see how they will succeed in ripping you off with a back room, Lizzy". "Certainly not", Miss Elizabeth responded, with a severity somewhat belied by the twinkle in her eye. "No, that is certain", Patrick added. "But what I am waiting to see, my love, is the way you will handle the old man". Miss Elizabeth looked a little anxious. "I could handle Papa, Patrick, couldn't I? If only Lord Clements is not a subject to gout! I think that was the only time when Papa became quite unmanageable". "All old men have gout", Patrick said. Miss Elizabeth sighed, acknowledging the truth of that pronouncement. "It's my belief", added Patrick, "that he doesn't want us to come to town. Come to think of it, didn't he say so?" Miss Elizabeth loosened the strings of her bag, and groped in it for a slender packet of letters. She spread one of them open. " 'Lord Clements presents his compliments to Sir Patrick and Miss Elizabeth and thinks it inadvisable for them to attempt the fatigues of a journey to Rome at this season. His lordship will do himself the honor of calling upon them in Massa when next he is in the North'. And that," Miss Elizabeth concluded, "was written well over three months before, you may see the date for yourself, Patrick: 29 July, 1811. And not even in his own handwriting. I am sure it is a secretary who wrote it, or one of those horrible lawyers. You can count on it, Lord Clements has forgotten about our very existence, because you know all the arrangements about the money we should have were made by the lawyers, and when ever there is any issue to be settled it is they who write about it. So if he does not want us to come to Rome, it is quite his fault for not having made the least attempt to come to us, or to tell us what we must do. I think him a very terrible guardian. I wish our father had named one of our friends in Tellaro, someone we are acquainted with. It is very disagreeable to be under the governance of a total stranger"."Well, if Lord Clements does not want to be at the trouble of ordering or lives, so much the better", Patrick said. "You want to cut a dash in town, and I daresay I can find plenty of amusement if we have not a crusty old guardian to spoil the fun"."Yes", Miss Elizabeth agreed, but somewhat doubtfully. "But in common civility, we must ask his permission to set up house in Rome. I do hope we shall not find him set against us, regarding it as an imposition, I mean; perhaps thinking that our uncle might rather have been appointed instead of himself. It must appear very singular to him. It is an awkward business, Parte".A grunt being the only response to that, she said no more, but leaned back in her corner and perused the unsatisfactory communication she had received from Lord Clements.It was an awkward business. His lordship, who must, she reflected, be going on for sixty five or seventy years of age, showed a marked disinclination to trouble himself when
"Yes, am I not telling you? The Champion - Darry Boa, you know - is to fight SteveAngelo tomorrow at some place or another around here. I did not perfectly catch the name. Thank God my dear, you had the good sense to reserve rooms for us, for they say there is no vacant room twenty miles from here! Come, come, don't be idling any longer, Lizzy!"The news that she had come to Florence on the eve of a prizefight could scarcely afford Miss Tellaro any form of gratification, but from having spent the greater part of her life in the company of her father and brother, and from having been used to hear a good deal of conversation about manly sports and to think them perfectly proper for gentlemen to take part in, she readily shared in Patrick's desire to be present at this fight. For herself, she had rather be anywhere else but there. Prizefighting could only disgust her, and although there would naturally be no question of her being a witness is the event, she must expect to hear all
He smiled. "No such thing, ma'am. We cannot tell but what if my room should properly be yours? My friend and I..." he made a sight gesture as though to indicate someone in the group behind him "... have acquaintance in the neighborhood, and may readily command a lodging at Hungertown Lodge. I - rather I should say we - are happy to be of service".There was nothing to do but thank him, and accept his offer. He vowed again, and withdrew to rejoin his friends. The landlord, relieved to have been rescued from a difficult situation, led the way out of the coffee room, and delivered his new guests into the care of a chamber maid. In a very little time they found themselves in possession of two respectable apartments on the first floor, and had nothing further to do than to await the arrival of their lugages.It was one of Miss Elizabeth's first concern to discover the name of her unknown benefactor, but by the time she had seen her baggage bestowed, and arranged for a truckle
Rounds the corner swept a curricle-and-four at breakneck speed. It was upon them, it must crash into them, there could be no stopping it. Patrick tried to wrench the horses round, cursing under his breath, Elizabeth felt herself powerless to move. She had a nightmarish vision of four magnificent chestnuts thundering down on her, and of a straight figure in a caped overcoat driving them. It was over in a flash. The chestnuts were swung miraculously to the off; the curricle's mudguard caught only the wheels of the gig, and the chestnuts came to a plunging standstill.The shock of the impact, though it was hardly more than a glancing scrape, startled the farmer's horse into an attempt to bolt, and in another moment one wheel of the gig was in the shallow ditch, and Miss Tellaro was nearly thrown from her seat.She righted herself, aware that her bonnet was crooked, and her temper in shreds, and found that the gentleman in the curricle was sitting perfectly unmoved
To one used to the silence of a country night sleep at the Vinaio Inn, Florence, on the eve of a great fight was almost an impossibility. Sounds of loud revelry floated up from the coffee room to Miss Tellaro's bed chamber until the early hour of the morning; she dozed fitfully, time and again awakened by a burst of laughter below stairs, voices in the street below her window, or a hurrying footstep outside her door. After two o'clock the noise abated gradually, and she was able at last to fall into a sleep which lasted until three long blasts on a horn rudely interrupted it at twenty three minutes past seven.She started up in bed. "Good God, what how?"Her maid, who had also been awakened by the sudden commotion, slipped out of the truckle bed, and ran to peep between the blinds of the window. She was able to report that it was only the Fillinburg mail, and stayed to giggle over the appearance presented by the night-capped passengers descending from it to par
Clarkson went back to join a group of gentlemen beside the ring in a few minutes, for he was to act as referee presently, and as usual had been put in charge of most of the arrangements. Patrick was so busy watching him, and thinking about his famous sparring school at No 15, Old Bay Street, and how he himself would be taking lessons there in a very short while, that he failed to notice the approach oh a curricle-and-four, which edged its way in neatly to a place immediately alongside his own gig and there drew up and stopped.A voice said, "starch is an excellent thing, but in moderation, Garbatela, for heaven's sake in moderation! I thought Jerome had dropped a hint in your ear?"The voice was a perfectly soft one, but it brought Patrick's head round with a jerk, and made him jump. It belonged to a gentleman who drove a team of blood chestnuts, and wore a great coat with fifteen capes. He was addressing an exquisite in an enormously high collar and neck clothe, w
Patrick drank it all in, feeling very humble and ignorant. In La Spezia he had been used to know everyone and he known everywhere, but it was evident that in Rome circles it was different. Tellaro and the Tellaro fortune counted for nothing. He was only an unknown provincial here. Mr Fritzwa produced an enormous turnip watch from his pocket and consulted it. "It's after twelve", he announced. "If the magistrates have got wind of this and mean to stop it, it will be a damn hum!" But just at the moment some cheering, not unmixed with catcalls and a few derisive shouts, was set up, and Steve Angelo, accompanied by his seconds, Faruk Lacesh, the Black, and Sancho Riclux, arbiter of sport, came up to the ring. "He looks like a strong fellow", said Patrick, anxiously scrutinizing as much as he could see of the Negro for the enveloping folds of his great coat. "Weighs something between thirteen and fourteen stone", said Mr Fritzwa knowledgeably. "They say he loses his temper. You weren't a
Mr Fritzwa began to fidget, for it was seen that both Boa's eyes were damaged. Steve Angelo, however, seemed to be in considerable distress, his great chest heaving, and the sweat pouring off him. The Champion was smiling, but the round ended in his falling again. Patrick was quite sure the black must win, and could not understand how seven to four in favor of Boa could still be offered. "Pooh, Boa hasn't began yet!" said Mr Fritzwa stoutly. "The black is looking at queer as Duck's hat band already". "Look at Boa's face!" retorted Patrick. "Lord, there's nothing in the black having drawn his cork. He's fighting at the head all the time. But watch Boa going for the mark, that's what I say. He'll mill his man down yet, though I don't deny the black shows game". Both men rattled in well up to time in the next round, but Steve Angelo had decidedly the best of the rally. Boa fell, and a roar of angry disapproval went up from the crowd. There were some shouts of 'foul!' and for a few mome