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The Prophet of Berkeley Square By: Robert Smythe Hichens (1864-1950) |
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By Robert Hichens
CHAPTER I MRS. MERILLIA IS CARRIED TO BED The great telescope of the Prophet was carefully adjusted upon its
lofty, brass bound stand in the bow window of Number One Thousand
Berkeley Square. It pointed towards the remarkably bright stars which
twinkled in the December sky over frosty London, those guardian stars
which always seemed to the Prophet to watch with peculiar solicitude
over the most respectable neighbourhood in which he resided. The
polestar had its eye even now upon the mansion of an adjacent
ex premier, the belt of Orion was not oblivious of a belted earl's cosy
red brick home just opposite, and the house of a certain famous actor
and actress close by had been taken by the Great Bear under its special
protection. The Prophet's butler, Mr. Ferdinand that bulky and veracious
gentleman threw open the latticed windows of the drawing room and
let the cold air rush blithely in. Then he made up the fire carefully,
placed a copy of Mr. Malkiel's Almanac , bound in dull pink and silver
brocade by Miss Clorinda Dolbrett of the Cromwell Road, upon a
small tulip wood table near the telescope, patted a sofa cushion
affectionately on the head, glanced around with the meditative eye of
the butler born not made, and quitted the comfortable apartment with a
salaried, but soft, footstep. It was a pleasant chamber, this drawing room of Number One Thousand. It
spoke respectfully of the generations that were past and seemed serenely
certain of a comfortable future. There was no too modern uneasiness
about it, no trifling, gim crack furniture constructed to catch the eye
and the angles of any one venturing to seek repose upon it, no unmeaning
rubbish of ornaments or hectic flummery of second rate pictures. Above
the high oaken mantel piece was a little pure bust in marble of the
Prophet when a small boy. To right and left were pretty miniatures in
golden frames of the Prophet's delightfully numerous grandmothers. Here
might be seen Mrs. Prothero, the great ship builder's faithful wife, in
blue brocade, and Lady Camptown, who reigned at Bath, in grey tabinet
and diamond buckles, when Miss Jane Austen was writing her first
romance; Mrs. Susan Burlington, who knew Lord Byron a remarkable
fact and Lady Sophia Green, who knew her own mind, a fact still more
remarkable. The last named lady wore black with a Roman nose, and the
combination was admirably convincing. Here might also be observed Mrs.
Stuefitt, Mistress of the Mazurka, and the Lady Jane Follington, of
whom George the Second had spoken openly in terms of approbation. She
affected plum colour and had eyes like sloes the fashionable hue in
the neat foot and pretty ankle period. The flames of the fire twinkled
brightly over this battalion of deuced fine women, who were all, without
one exception, the grandmothers in various degrees of the Prophet.
When speaking of them, in the highest terms, he never differentiated
them by the adjectives great, or great great. They were all kind and
condescending enough to be his grandmothers. For a man of his sensitive,
delicate and grateful disposition this was enough. He thought them all
quite perfect, and took them all under the protection of his soft and
beaming eyes. Of Mrs. Merillia, the live grandmother with whom he had the great
felicity to dwell in Berkeley Square, he seldom said anything in
public praise. The incense he offered at her shrine rose, most sweetly
perfumed, from his daily life. The hearth of this agreeable and
grandmotherly chamber was attractive with dogs, the silver cage beside
it with green love birds. Upon the floor was a heavy, dull blue carpet
over which as has been intimated even a butler so heavy as Mr.
Ferdinand could go softly. The walls were dressed with a dull blue paper
that looked like velvet. Here and there upon them hung a picture: a landscape of George Morland,
lustily English, a Cotman, a Cuyp cows in twilight a Reynolds, faded
but exquisitely genteel... Continue reading book >>
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Genres for this book |
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Fiction |
Teen/Young adult |
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