“Is he a painter or writer or something?” I asked.
“No, Signore, he’s a gentleman.”
Odd, I thought. No foreigners came to Positano at that time of year but German Wandervogel, looking hot and dusty, with satchels on their backs, and they only stayed overnight. I could not imagine anyone wishing to spend three months there; unless of course he were hiding. And since all London had been excited by the flight earlier in the year of an eminent, but dishonest, financier, the amusing thought occurred to me that this mysterious stranger was perhaps he. I knew him slightly and trusted that my sudden arrival would not disconcert him.
“You’ll see the Signore at the Marina,” said Giuseppe, as I was setting out to go down again. “He always dines there.”
He was certainly not there when I arrived. I asked what there was for dinner and drank an americano, which is by no means a bad substitute for a cocktail. In a few minutes, however, a man walked in who could be no other than my fellow-guest at the hotel and I had a moment’s disappointment when I saw that it was not the absconding financier. A tall, elderly man, bronzed after his summer on the Mediterranean, with a handsome, thin face. He wore a very neat, even smart, suit of cream-coloured silk and no hat. His grey hair was cut very short, but was still thick. There was ease in his bearing, and elegance. He looked round the half-dozen tables under the archway at which the natives of the place were playing cards or dominoes and his eyes rested on me. They smiled pleasantly. He came up.
“I hear you have just arrived at the hotel. Giuseppe suggested that as he couldn’t come down here to effect an introduction you wouldn’t mind if I introduced myself. Would it bore you to dine with a total stranger?”
“Of course not. Sit down.”
He turned to the maid who was laying a cover for me and in beautiful Italian told her that I would eat with him. He looked at my americano.
“I have got them to stock a little gin and French vermouth for me. Would you allow me to mix you a very dry Martini?”
“Without hesitation.”
“It gives an exotic note to the surroundings which brings out the local colour.”
He certainly made a very good cocktail and with added appetite we ate the ham and anchovies with which our dinner began. My host had a pleasant humour and his fluent conversation was agreeable.
“You must forgive me if I talk too much,” he said presently. “This is the first chance I’ve had to speak English for three months. I don’t suppose you will stay here long and I mean to make the most of it.”
“Three months is a long time to stay at Positano.”
“I’ve hired a boat and I bathe and fish. I read a great deal. I have a good many books here and if there’s anything I can lend you I shall be very glad.”
“I think I have enough reading matter. But I should love to look at what you have. It’s always fun looking at other people’s books.”
He gave me a sharp look and his eyes twinkled.
“It also tells you a good deal about them,” he murmured.
When we finished dinner we went on talking. The stranger was well-read and interested in a diversity of topics. He spoke with so much knowledge of painting that I wondered if he was an art critic or a dealer. But then it appeared that he had been reading Suetonius and I came to the conclusion that he was a college professor. I asked him his name.
“Barnaby,” he answered.
“That’s a name that has recently acquired an amazing celebrity.”
“Oh, how so?”
“Have you never heard of the celebrated Mrs Barnaby? She’s a compatriot of yours.”
“I admit that I’ve seen her name in the papers rather frequently of late. Do you know her?”
“Yes, quite well. She gave the grandest parties all last season and I went to them whenever she asked me. Everyone did. She’s an astounding woman. She came to London to do the season, and, by George, she did it. She just swept everything before her.”
“I understand she’s very rich?”
“Fabulously, I believe, but it’s not that that has made her success. Plenty of American women have money. Mrs Barnaby has got where she has by sheer force of character. She never pretends to be anything but what she is. She’s natural. She’s priceless. You know her history, of course?”
My friend smiled.
“Mrs Barnaby may be a great celebrity in London, but to the best of my belief in America she is almost inconceivably unknown.”
I smiled also, but within me; I could well imagine how shocked this distinguished and cultured man would be by the rollicking humour, the frankness, with its tang of the soil, and the rich and vital experience of the amazing Mrs Barnaby.
“Well, I’ll tell you about her. Her husband appears to be a very rough diamond; he’s a great hulking fellow, she says, who could fell a steer with his fist. He’s known in Arizona as One-Bullet Mike.”
“Good gracious! Why?”
“Well, years ago in the old days he killed two men with a single shot. She says he’s handier with his gun even now than any man West of the Rockies. He’s a miner, but he’s been a cowpuncher, a gun-runner, and God knows what in his day.”
“A thoroughly Western type,” said my professor a trifle acidly, I thought.
“Something of a desperado, I imagine. Mrs Barnaby’s stories about him are a real treat. Of course everyone’s been begging her to let him come over, but she says he’d never leave the wide open spaces. He struck oil a year or two ago and now he’s got all the money in the world. He must be a great character. I’ve heard her keep the whole dinner-table spellbound when she’s talked of the old days when they roughed it together. It gives you quite a thrill when you see this grey-haired woman, not at all pretty, but exquisitely dressed, with the most wonderful pearls, and hear her tell how she washed the miners’ clothes and cooked for the camp. Your American women have an adaptability that’s really stupendous. When you see Mrs Barnaby sitting at the head of her table, perfectly at home with princes of the blood, ambassadors, cabinet ministers, and the duke of this and the duke of that, it seems almost incredible that only a few years ago she was cooking the food of seventy miners.”
“Can she read or write?”
“I suppose her invitations are written by her secretary, but she’s by no means an ignorant woman. She told me she used to make a point of reading for an hour every night after the fellows in camp had gone to bed.”
“Remarkable!”
“On the other hand One-Bullet Mike only learnt to write his name when he suddenly found himself under the necessity of signing cheques.”
We walked up the hill to our hotel and before separating for the night arranged to take our luncheon with us next day and row over to a cove that my friend had discovered. We spent a charming day bathing, reading, eating, sleeping, and talking, and we dined together in the evening. The following morning, after breakfast on the terrace, I reminded Barnaby of his promise to show me his books.
“Come right along.”
I accompanied him to his bedroom, where Giuseppe, the waiter, was making his bed. The first thing I caught sight of was a photograph in a gorgeous frame of the celebrated Mrs Barnaby. My friend caught sight of it too and suddenly turned pale with anger.
“You fool, Giuseppe. Why have you taken that photograph out of my wardrobe? Why the devil did you think I put it away?”
“I didn’t know, Signore. That’s why I put it back on the Signore’s table. I thought he liked to see the portrait of his signora.”