voice and plenty of execution. Sketches, too,--not particularly well,
though. Her things look right enough, but somehow they don't say much.
Firenzo thinks that's the trouble with her singing. Good voice, you
know, but it doesn't speak. Young, I suppose! That's it; eh?"
"Twenty years old, you say? Yes, I should call that young! And the other
one? Tell me about her."
"Well, Polly hasn't much ambition. Nice contralto voice, not much
cultivated. Rather a contralto little woman, don't you know? The kind
that somehow warms the cockles of your heart. Lots of character, too.
There's nothing weak about Polly. You'll like her."
"I'm sure I shall. And what has she been about all these years?
Twenty-seven, did you say?"
"Well, family matters mostly. They've kept her pretty busy. She's the
eldest, you know. She has married off three of them already."
"Three sisters?"
"No; two sisters and a father. There's nobody left now, but these two."
It was all very like that trip on the lagoons yesterday; only, in the
one case, he had seen the lagoons through the eyes of his Pollys, while
to-day he seemed to be seeing his Pollys through the eyes of the woman
he loved. And he found that gracious sharing of his interest a balm to
the old wound, and he was soothed and beguiled into a strange new
acquiescence. It would come again, the importunate trouble. He should,
in a very few minutes, bring down upon himself that gentle refusal, more
poignant in its kindness than scorn or misprision would have been.
As he sat there touching upon one characteristic and another of his
Pollys, in the direct, soldierly fashion that cuts through ordinary
modes of speech, clean and incisive as a sword-point, he vaguely felt
that this was only a postponement, a respite. It could not last, this
extraordinary, unaccountable resignation. He was not sure that he should
approve of it if it did. But, meantime, he had not told her how the
girls had enjoyed riding on the Campagna, and how they had followed the
hunt one day, and not a bone broken! Nor how they had got to know their
way about Rome like a book and how--really, the subject was quite
inexhaustible!
The sun was shining like mad upon the palaces opposite, and as he
looked across the flower-boxes in the window, he felt quite in sympathy
with this high noon of light and color. A steamboat shrieked beneath the
window, and the discordant sound hardly seemed an intrusion. And then,
suddenly, taking him quite at unawares, a firm step resounded upon the
hard, smooth conglomerate of the broad passage-way, and--"Here is Geof!"
his mother announced. "You would hardly know him, Colonel!"
The Colonel rose to his feet and turned toward the door, guiltily
conscious that he had evaded the subject of Geof. As his eye fell upon
the lithe, vigorous figure coming toward him, he recognised the fact
that evasion was no longer possible. An instant later he had recognised
the young architect of Western proclivities whom he had taken such a
liking to an hour ago.
"So you are Geof!" the Colonel exclaimed. "I might have known it, too,
though I had quite forgotten that you were grown up."
"And you are Colonel Steele! Why, this is great! You used to be
first-rate to me when I was a little chap. Were those your daughters in
the gallery?"
"No, my nieces," said the Colonel, and his spirits went up like a cork.
He knew the Signora was great friends with her son, but she evidently
understood where to draw the line!
"And I may bring them to see you, Signora?"
"The sooner the better. Why not this afternoon? We can have tea early
and get a couple of hours on the lagoon in the pretty light. I'm afraid
you have an engagement, haven't you, Geof?"
"Oh, I don't mind throwing Kenwick over. He'll keep," and the young man
stepped to the other window and flung it open.
Geoffry Daymond went down to the door with his mother's old friend, but
he had the tact not to offer him a hand across the plank to the gondola;
an act of forbearance which was not lost upon the Colonel.
"Not a bit like his mother," the Colonel was saying to himself. "Not a
bit. Wonder if he takes after his father. The kind of man that would
stick in a woman's memory, I should say."
And then, just as the gondola was passing the house where the little
stone girls keep their uncomprehending outlook upon the world, a sharp
pang took him, followed by a strange--was it a disloyal?--sense of
relief, and he exclaimed, under his breath, "I never asked her!"
VI
A Festa
"You didn't tell us what a beauty Mrs. Daymond was, Uncle Dan," said
May, as they sat at dinner that evening.
They had a small table to themselves, close by one of the long glass
doors opening out into the garden. It was a warm evening, and sweet,
vagrant perfumes came straying in at the open door, and in the momentary
hush which sometimes falls upon the noisiest _table d'hote_, pretty
plashing sounds could be heard in the Canal beyond the garden.
"Not a very easy thing to do," said Uncle Dan, setting down his glass of
claret, with a wry face. He felt sure that the wine had been kept on
ice. Ugh!
"Have you known her a long time?"
"Yes, Polly; since before you were born."
"What an age!" cried May. "And you never told us a word about her!"
"Fact is," Uncle Dan explained, "I haven't seen her more than once in
five or six years, and then only over here. You'll find people don't
want to hear about your travels."
Really quite an ingenious turn, the Colonel flattered himself,--to
account for the passion of a life-time as an incident of travel! He was
so exhilarated over this feat that he was emboldened to pursue the
subject. Besides, big Polly had not spoken, and he could not suffer any
tribute to the lady of his allegiance to go by default.
"What did you think of her, Polly?" he asked.
"I can only say," Pauline declared, with an earnestness of conviction
that was even more expressive than her sister's encomiums, "that if she
had not invited us girls to go in her gondola it would have spoiled the
afternoon."
"But the son is very nice; didn't you think so?" asked May, seized, in
her turn, with the spirit of investigation. "He didn't even seem
conceited, which clever people usually are."
"Yes, indeed! he is very nice; how did you like him, Uncle Dan?"
"Geof?" Uncle Dan repeated, rather absently; "How did I like Geof? Oh, I
should say he was turning out very well. But I thought you girls had the
best of it"; whence it may be gathered that Mrs. Daymond had not only
borrowed the two girls, but had offered her son as compensation to the
Colonel.
"How pretty the two gondolas will look going about together when we get
our new flags," said May. "It will be a regular little flotilla."
"Aren't you expecting a good deal of Mrs. Daymond?" Pauline demurred.
"Why of course we shall go about together. She said she hoped to see a
great deal of us while we were here."
The Colonel emptied his claret-glass, while a sense of warmth and
well-being stole through his veins, that made him think he must have
been mistaken about that ice.
"Are you going to fly the Stars and Stripes?" he asked. He had never
considered the prow of a gondola a very fitting situation for the flag
he had fought for,--but perhaps the Pollys knew best.
"No, indeed," said May. "We are going to have something ever so much
prettier than that."
"Ah, Polly! There's nothing prettier than the Stars and Stripes," the
Colonel protested.
"May means more original," said Pauline. "She has had one of her happy
thoughts."
"You see, Uncle Dan," May explained, "there are such a lot of national
flags on the gondolas, and it seems so stupid not to have something
different. So Mr. Daymond and I have concocted quite a new scheme,--or
rather the idea was mine and he is going to paint them. We are going to
have a sea-horse painted on red bunting, in tawny colors, golds and
browns; and Mr. Daymond thinks he shall make one for their gondola on a
dark blue ground. Shan't you feel proud to sail the Venetian lagoons
with a sea-horse at the mast-head?"
"Proud as a peacock! And the young man is going to paint it for you?"
"Yes; isn't that good of him? And shan't we look pretty?"
"Never saw the time you didn't," Uncle Dan was tempted to say. But he
flattered himself that he never spoiled his nieces, and so he remarked
instead, with his most crafty grimace: "No, you'll probably look like
frights"; which, if the girls had not been quite case-hardened against
his thinly disguised compliments, might have had just the disastrous
effect he wished to avoid.
Truth to tell, they were neither of them very susceptible to flattery,
for neither of them was in the least self-centred. Even May, who was far
from sharing her sister's mellow warmth of interest in other
people,--even May, with all the crudities and shortcomings of youth
still in the ascendant, was too much occupied with her rapidly acquired
views of the phenomena about her, to pay much attention to the perhaps
equally interesting phenomenon of her own personality. The impression
left upon the two girls by their half hour's talk with Geoffry Daymond
was characteristic of each. May approved of him because he had been
interested in her ideas; and Pauline liked him because he had been
interested in her sister.
Whatever the young man's impressions may have been, it may as well be
stated at once, that in the course of that tea-drinking he made up his
mind that his mother really had a right to expect him to stay with her
for the next week or two, and that he should tell Oliver Kenwick
to-morrow, that he would have to get somebody else for that tramp
through the Titian country. What did he care about the Titian country
anyway? Here was Titian himself here in Venice, and lots besides. He
would pitch into those flags to-morrow. That was really a very happy
thought of the talkative one. He wondered if the quiet one would say
more if she got a chance; she did not look stupid. And that reflection
had struck him as so preposterous, that he had almost interrupted her
sister in her expression of opinion on the subject of the famous bronze
chargers that seem always on the point of plunging down from the front
of San Marco into the Piazza, to the destruction of the babies and
pigeons there assembled, to ask: "Miss Beverly what do you like best in
Venice?"
"The gondola," said Pauline, after an instant's reflection--a little
pause which proved to be one of her idiosyncrasies.
"The gondola?" he repeated, doubtfully. "The gondola isn't very much by
itself."
"But the gondola never is by itself. It's the centre of everything. It's
all Venice and a living creature besides--something like a person's
heart. Of course I don't mean the gondolas on the souvenir spoons!" she
added, with the little ripple, that was so much prettier than a definite
smile. Decidedly, Miss Beverly was not stupid.
"You row, of course?" May had considered her question to be quite in
line with the conversation. "Is it very difficult?"
"Not after you get the knack. That is, the forward oar gets going after
a while. I rather think you would have to begin almost in long clothes
as these gondoliers do to get anything like their skill in really
handling the boat."
And now, in reply to Uncle Dan's artful substitute for a compliment, one
of the prospective frights remarked: "Mr. Daymond says they have a
lighter oar that he used to row with when he was a boy. He is going to
get it out for us to-morrow, and then we must all learn to row."
"I think I should prefer to learn by observation," Uncle Dan demurred,
as he pulled his stiff leg out from under the table. Upon which, dinner
being over, the girls went off in search of their wraps, while the
Colonel stepped out between the glass doors, and strolled down to the
bottom of the garden, where the water lapped the stone parapet.
The dusk had gathered and the stars were coming out. The water was
dotted with gondola-lights that twinkled here and there, like detached
will-o'-the wisps, the black hulls of the boats not being clearly
distinguishable in the shadow. Every gondola was out, excepting the few
unlucky ones that were detained for ferry service; for there was to be a
_festa_ this evening, and the _forestieri_,--by which pretty woodsy name
the tourist is designated in the most poetic of tongues,--could be
counted upon to pay fancy prices.
The Colonel, secure in his possession of Vittorio, took no part in the
bargaining that was going on at the hotel steps, a few yards away, and
all along the line of the garden wall. He was standing beside the iron
railing, pulling at a contemplative cigar, and listening, with
considerable relish, to the wrangling of the gondoliers, when he heard
a voice just under the wall, saying: "_Buona sera_, Signore! It's
Nanni."
[Illustration: "The gondola is the centre of everything;
it is Venice and a living creature besides"]
The Colonel had not observed that one of the shadowy barks had glided
close in under the wall at his feet.
"Why, Nanni!" he exclaimed; and reaching down over the railing he
clasped a strong brown hand.
The man was standing at the stern of the gondola, steadying the oar with
one hand. He had flung his hat to the floor of the boat, and as he stood
there, bare-headed, the garden lights shining full upon his upturned
face, he made a striking picture. His hair was absolutely black, and his
face was of the pure Italian type, very dark, and cast in noble lines.
About the mouth and eyes, a touch of austere melancholy was discernible,
even now, in the animation of the moment. He was like his brother, though
his face lacked the sunlit quality which was his brother's chief charm of
countenance. On the other hand, the intelligence of his brother's face
was here developed into something higher and more serious,--higher and
sadder, the Colonel thought, in the moment's pause that followed. He had
not seen this protege of his for ten years, and the years had left their
impress upon him.
"Vittorio has met with a slight accident," Nanni was saying. "He has
twisted his wrist, and if he rows this evening it will get worse. Will
the Signore permit me to act as substitute?"
The Signore looked disturbed.
"I don't know, Nanni, how that would work," he said. "My nieces, you
know. I'm afraid they would find you out."
"No fear of that, Signore. I'm as good a gondolier as ever I was, and I
can hold my tongue."
The Colonel looked at him critically. To the initiated, there was a good
deal both in the man's speech and bearing to rouse suspicion. A subtle
difference that would hardly be defined as superiority; was it not
rather something contradictory, not quite homogeneous, and in so far
disadvantageous? The Colonel was not addicted to careful analysis of his
impressions, and he felt himself cornered.
"I hope you won't misunderstand me, Nanni," he said, apologetically.
"I'm immensely proud of you;--it isn't that. But,--well, it's not my
way to talk about things. I suppose it's crochety, but somehow, I like
to keep things separate, you know. If you talk about a thing it usually
spoils it."
It did not once occur to the Colonel that the man of education, and
presumably of some social standing, would feel any aversion to a
temporary relinquishment of these advantages. To the _padrone_, the
skilled physician who owed to him his education, was still, first and
foremost, the son of his old gondolier, in whom, when a bright boy of
fifteen, a week in hospital with a broken arm had aroused a consuming
ambition to be a doctor. The education, the profession, seemed to the
Colonel--perhaps because it was primarily due to him,--accidental and
extraneous. Fundamentally he was still the gondolier's son, the member
of a caste too imperative and enduring in character to yield to
circumstances.
And the really noteworthy feature of the situation was the fact that the
gondolier's son fully shared the view of the _padrone_. Once in Venice,
among his own people, Giovanni Scuro felt as thoroughly at home in the
character of gondolier, as if he had never learned the meaning of the
word science. Hence he could answer, with perfect sincerity: "Si,
Signore; I understand. But you may trust me. And you will go out with me
this evening?"
"Why, yes; I suppose we had better," said the Colonel, somewhat
reassured.
"And to-morrow, if Vittorio is not able to row? Of course that is as the
Signore wishes. Another gondolier can be had to-morrow for the asking;
but to-night, the prices are appalling. They have no consciences, these
men."
"We'll see how it works to-night. Ah! there are my nieces. We will meet
you at the door. And, by the way, Nanni, have you picked up any
English?"
"No, Signore; only French."
As the gondola came up to the landing the party stepped aboard as
quickly as might be, to clear the way for others who were waiting their
turn, and it occurred to Uncle Dan that the girls might, after all, not
notice the new man at the oar. But he had reckoned without May's
observant eyes. The moment the boat was free of the crowd, she turned
sharp about and looked at the _gondolier_.
"Why, Uncle Dan," she cried. "We've got a new man! Did you know it?"
"Yes; Vittorio has twisted his hand, and his brother has come to take
his place."
"His brother? Oh, yes; he does look like him. We were lucky to get him,
were we not?"
"What a pity Vittorio should have hurt his hand!" said Pauline. "I hope
it's nothing serious. He was such a nice man."
"No," said the Colonel, incautiously. "His brother says it's nothing
serious."
"But he can't know much about it," Pauline urged. "Don't you think he
ought to see a doctor?"
"I rather think he will, to-morrow, unless it's all right again."
"If it's a sprain he can't be too careful with it," she insisted.
"What is Italian for sprain?" asked May. "I want to tell the man to have
a doctor."
"I'm sure I don't know," said Uncle Dan, trembling for his guilty
secret. "I'll tell him."
"How can you tell him, if you don't know how?" May argued. Then, turning
abruptly, and glancing up into the intent, forward-looking face, just
visible in the uncertain lights of the Canal: "Hasn't your brother seen
a doctor?" she asked.
"Si, Signorina," Nanni replied, without an instant's hesitation.
"And what does he think is the trouble?"
"A slight sprain," said Nanni; "he hopes it is nothing serious!"
"That was very sensible of you," said May; "to send for a doctor at
once. There, Uncle Dan, now we know the Italian for sprain. I believe in
always trying to say everything!" in which startling statement the young
girl admitted more than she had intended.
They were just passing the Palazzo Darino, where a gondola lurked in the
shadow.
"We shall hardly see them in the crowd," Uncle Dan remarked. "What's
your idea, Nanni? Think you can keep us out of the jam?"
"Si, Signore; I know a place where they won't crowd us."
"What a funny name that is for a man," May exclaimed.
"It's short for Giovanni. I got in the way of calling him that when he
was a little shaver and used to row me about with his father."
The Canal was twinkling with gondola lights, and as they approached the
broad arch of the Rialto the crowd became greater, obliging them to
pause now and then, while the dip of multitudinous oars made itself
heard, a delicious undertone to the shouts and execrations of excited
gondoliers. Presently, however, they had cleared the bridge, and a few
strokes of the oar brought them into a quiet little haven formed by two
big boats moored alongside the fish-market. As they came to a stop they
could already hear the music floating round the great bend of the Canal.
The hulls of the two fishing-boats loomed tall and dark at either end of
the gondola, while the rays of a lamp in the arcade over yonder fell
athwart the yellow-brown sail of one of them, reefed loosely about the
mast. There were a good many people on the quay, but they were a quiet
gathering. The more aggressive members of the Venetian populace are
pretty sure to get afloat on such an occasion, and a dozen different
kinds of irresponsible craft were being propelled, with more or less
skill, and a distracting absence of etiquette, among the decorous
gondolas, whose long-suffering masters shouted themselves hoarse in
their efforts to enforce the conventional rules of the highway.
Presently one of the gondolas glided in alongside the Colonel's, and
almost before their respective occupants could recognise one another the
gunwales of the two boats had been securely lashed together.
"We're just in time," said Geoffry. "We could see the reflection of the
lights around the bend, when we were in midstream. Ah, there it comes!"
As he spoke, a brilliant, variegated light fell upon the mass of
gondolas a few rods up the Canal, and a moment later the huge structure
of red, white, and green lamps, came drifting down-stream. It
represented a great temple with dome-like roof topped by a crown of
lights, glittering against the dark background of the night. As it drew
nearer, the throng of boats in its path thinned a little, and broken
reflections of the gleaming lights danced between the gondolas, and
sparkled in the oar-drops.
"What do you think of the architecture of it?" May asked, in her fresh
young voice, that seemed to dissipate illusion, like a ray of plain
daylight let in upon a stage scene.
Daymond laughed.
"I don't perceive any," he said. "Do you?"
"Well, I don't know; I supposed it was meant for a building."
"Oh, no!" said Pauline. "It's meant for a dream. Don't wake us up, May!
See; they're stopping in front of the Ca' Doro."
The movement of the great barge had been so slow, that it had halted
almost unawares in front of the beautiful palace, and straightway a rosy
bengal light lit up the carvings of the fairy-like facade with a magical
effect. The band, lurking melodramatically under the gleaming arches of
the barge, struck up a prelude, and presently a soprano voice rose high
and strong above the wind and stringed instruments, ringing superbly out
across the water. The fantastic impression of the scene was so strong
that it seemed as if the visible brilliance of the shining lights had
entered into the voice itself, giving it a weird and uncanny splendour.
The vast floating audience listened, motionless and silent, until the
last note went out like a light suddenly extinguished. Then, after a
gust of hand-clapping had subsided, the glittering barge moved forward
once more, the dip of a hundred oars plashing softly in its wake.
When the mass of the attendant flotilla had passed the mouth of their
little haven, the two friendly gondolas glided out amid-stream, in time
to see the crown of light lowered within the dome, for the passage under
the bridge. The reflections played upon the face of the arch until the
massive granite seemed hardly more real than the fairy-like temple of
light itself; and then suddenly, the flickering colours vanished from
the face of the bridge, and were shining upon the broad under-span of
the arch. An instant later it was past and over, and May and Geoffry
were comparing impressions with great earnestness on her part and
undisguised relish on his.
"How pretty the light must be on the Virgin and the Angel on the other
side of the bridge," said Pauline.
"Yes," Mrs. Daymond answered; "I was thinking of that."
Then came a mysterious gliding of the two gondolas, Indian-file, down
dark, narrow canals, where were glimpses, through low passage-ways into
dimly lighted squares. On one of the bridges, as they passed beneath it,
a hollow footstep sounded, and as they looked back they could see a
cloaked figure leaning upon the stone parapet. Now and then a chance
gas-lamp cast upon the wall beside them the shadow of the gondolier's
swaying figure, vanishing then in the black water like a stealthy
suicide. Pauline looked round once or twice, involuntarily, to make sure
that the man was still there, and once May said: "Nanni, could we get
past if we were to meet any one?"
"Si, Signorina," the grave voice made answer; and Uncle Dan felt
agreeably confirmed in his impression that Nanni was to be trusted.
Nearly two hours later, the girls were awakened from their first sleep
by the soft plashing sound of myriad oars. In a moment they were
standing on the balcony in their pretty cashmere wrappers, leaning on
the cushions of the stone balustrade. On came the gleaming colours of
Italy, not a single light extinguished during the long, slow passage
down the Canal; nor did the floating escort seem diminished by so much
as a single boat.