luminous apparition halted before it, and a burst of music rose from the
barge. Over yonder, beyond the long, low line of the Giudecca, a pensive
old moon was coming up, slow and mist-obscured, as if reluctant to rise
upon a world so well able to dispense with its light.
"The old moon always goes to your heart," said Pauline.
"Yes; but it will be young again in a week or two," May observed,
consolingly; and at that instant an emerald light struck full upon the
white facade of San Giorgio, and straightway the poor old moon was
consigned to the oblivion it clearly coveted.
VII
Gathering Poppies
"This is Vittorio's gondola, is it not, Nanni?" asked May, who had an
eye for details and had instantly identified the boat.
"Si, Signorina."
They had spent the morning sight-seeing, and now they were, according to
Uncle Dan, having their reward, coasting along the outer shore of the
Giudecca, in the heavenly afternoon light. The Colonel much preferred
the easy social conditions of the gondola to the restraint, not to say
chill, of church and chapel, where a man must not wear his hat nor speak
above a whisper.
May was sitting, as she liked to do, in the little gondola chair, whence
she commanded every point of the compass; a position which had the
further advantage of facilitating communication with the gondolier.
"Why don't you use your own gondola?" she persisted.
For an instant Uncle Dan's loyalty wavered, and he wondered whether
Polly were not perhaps a trifle forward for so young a girl. He had not
been struck by it before, and even now he would have challenged such a
heresy in another; but, really,--
"Because this is the better gondola," Nanni replied, in the grave,
impersonal tone which was in such marked contrast with his brother's
eager alacrity.
"I wish Vittorio would get well," May exclaimed, impatiently; "this man
isn't half as nice."
"Don't you think so?" Pauline queried. "He is a perfect gondolier."
"Yes; but he is so unapproachable. One could never get confidential with
him; one would never ask him about his wife and children, and think how
delighted Vittorio was to tell us about each individual _bambino_!"
"It would not be of much use to ask him," Uncle Dan interposed hastily.
"For he hasn't any."
"I have an idea he is poor," said Pauline. "Even poorer than the rest of
them. I wonder what is the reason."
"So do I," said May. "Nanni, is your gondola a very old one?"
"Si, Signorina; very old."
"What a pity! It must be very bad for you. Which is your ferry?"
"I don't belong to any."
"But I thought every gondolier belonged to a ferry."
There was no reply.
"Isn't that so?" May insisted.
"Si, Signorina, but I am no longer a gondolier."
"Why, what are you?"
At this juncture Uncle Dan felt it imperatively necessary to interpose
again.
"That's San Clemente," he observed, indicating an island half-a-mile
away, composed, apparently, of red brick and window-glass.
"How lovely!" May exclaimed; and the indiscriminating response betrayed
inattention.
"What are you?" she asked again.
"I do not live in Venice, Signorina; my home is in Milan."
"In Milan? What do you do there?"
"I am attached to a hospital."
There was something peculiarly provocative of curiosity in the laconic
replies of the man. May wondered whether his reticence was due to
modesty or to moroseness. Perhaps she could find out.
"What do you do at the hospital?" she asked.
For the first time his eyes met hers directly, as he said, with
something almost like a challenge in his voice: "I am one of its servants,
Signorina."
Yes, May thought, it was moroseness; he was unhappy, and no wonder.
"What a pity!" she cried, with very genuine compassion in her voice. "It
can't be half so nice as being a gondolier."
But Nanni was again intent upon his work, rowing with long, steady
strokes, his eyes fixed upon the course of the gondola.
"Do you like it as well?" she asked, with a quite inexplicable sense of
temerity. She felt herself on the verge of being overawed by the stately
reticence of this hospital servant.
"It is my work," said Nanni, in a gentler tone. "A man's work is his
life."
"But if you had a good gondola and a place at a _traghetto_, wouldn't
you rather come back to Venice?"
"No, Signorina; I love my work."
"Polly, you ought to have been a lawyer," Uncle Dan remarked, highly
amused at the insuccess of her catechising, which he by this time
perceived to be harmless.
They had turned in to one of the canals of the Giudecca, that great
crescent island whose curve follows the southern line of the city, as
the outer arc of a rainbow follows the inner. Not a breath stirred the
water of the canal, upon which theirs was the only moving craft. Moored
close to the low, brick coping of the quay, which bordered one side of
the _rio_, were two or three fishing-boats, their broad hulls black,
their rudder arms rudely carved and gaily decorated. Here, a gorgeous
red sail hung loose in the still air; there, a voluminous brown net,
bordered with rings and bobbers, was stretched between two stout masts,
drying in the sun. Curious great bulging baskets, dingy brown in colour
and shaped like giant sea-urchins, depended from the gunwales, half
immersed in water, the mortal remains of small, crab-like creatures
sticking to their sides. All this picturesqueness, and more besides, was
reflected in the placid water. On the one hand was the quay, with its
irregular row of houses done in delicious sun-baked colours, in front of
which women in sulphur shawls and children in variegated rags were
sunning themselves and passing the time of day. On the other side, a
tumble-down wall of brick, that once was red, rose out of the water in
such formless dilapidation that one could not tell where the reality
merged into the reflection; while masses of verdure from a hidden garden
tossed their heads above it, or tumbled over it as if enchanted to get a
glimpse of themselves in the dark, cool water below. A wooden bridge
spanned the canal, glassed perfectly in the still water, and somebody's
wash, hung out to dry at one end of the rustic railing, blended acceptably
in the quaint harmony of the picture.
Nanni had been rowing slowly, and just there, perceiving that the
attention of his passengers was arrested, he stayed his oar. A bird,
hidden somewhere among the foliage, in the garden, chose that moment for
making a melodious observation to his mate, while a somewhat timid and
tentative baby-voice from the quay lisped: "_Un soldino_," not with any
business intention but merely by way of practice. The whole thing was so
incredibly pretty that there was nothing to be said about it, and for a
number of seconds no one spoke.
Then May exclaimed: "I'm so afraid somebody will say something!" upon
which the others laughed, and instantly the oar was put in motion again,
the gondola gliding forward under the bridge and past other ruinous,
verdure-crowned walls.
"What a shame this man should not be a gondolier," May cried, returning
to the charge, with unabated interest. "It does seem as if we might
perhaps do something about it."
She glanced up at the grave face, half inclined to press the subject
further. The man was gazing straight over the prow of the gondola, not
more intent than his brother often was, yet the young girl felt abashed
and deterred from her purpose. If it were Vittorio, she told herself,
she might be sure that the dark features would break into a flashing
smile when she spoke to him. But this man could not be depended upon to
look pleased at any casual notice bestowed upon him. She wondered why;
she wondered why he was so different. Had he always been like that, or
was it his life of exile and servitude? Nothing could convince her that
he really liked his work in the hospital, far away from his beautiful
Venice. There was some mystery about it, and she hated to be baffled.
"Yes, I always like poking about in the Giudecca," Uncle Dan was saying.
"It's chock full of pretty bits, and then you keep coming out on the
lagoon again, and like as not there are marsh-birds or people wading
about after shell-fish. There's always something going on on the
lagoons."
"Why, I should have said that the lagoon was the quietest place in the
world," Pauline remarked.
"It is," Uncle Dan admitted. "That's why you are so sure to notice any
little thing that happens to be going on!"
Meanwhile the gondolier had unconsciously suited his action to their
word, and they had come out upon the lagoon again, and now they were
skirting the pretty green Giudecca shore, where scarlet poppies stood
bright and motionless in the still sunshine.
"Oh, I want some of those poppies," cried May. "Nanni, could we go
ashore and get some of those flowers? How do you call them?"
"They are _papaveri_, Signorina," he answered; "I will get you some."
"But I want to get them myself."
"That would not be possible, Signorina; it is difficult to land."
He rowed slowly for a few seconds more, and then he backed water and
brought the gondola in toward the shore which rose several feet above
the water and was formed of loose earth and stones. May, forced to admit
that she could not herself land, seated herself on the gondola steps
whence she could watch the proceedings. The gondola was creeping closer
and closer to the shore, sidling in, for it was only here and there that
the water was deep enough to carry the boat. Presently Nanni laid the
blade of the oar flat upon the grass and so drew the boat gently in.
Then, still keeping his hold upon the shore with the blade of the oar,
he laid the other end across the stern, and, assuring himself that the
balance was perfect, he found a foothold in the loose earth, and, with
one long step, gained the top of the embankment. The gondola gave
somewhat beneath his foot, and the stern rose as it righted itself, but
the oar-blade did not yield its curiously tenacious hold.
"How nice of him, not to tell us to sit still," May exclaimed. "One does
like to be treated like an intelligent being!"
She watched the tall figure moving here and there, stooping to pick
half-a-dozen blossoms, giving an occasional glance at the gondola
meanwhile, to make sure that all was well. Presently the figure
disappeared in the hollow.
"One feels quite abandoned," Pauline remarked. "What would become of us
if the boat were to glide off?"
"We could wade ashore," May suggested. "It doesn't appear to be more
than a foot deep anywhere."
"I rather think Nanni would have to do the wading," said Uncle Dan.
The tide was going out, slipping so quietly to the sea that here, at
this remote anchorage, the receding of the water was imperceptible. The
marsh had not yet begun to prick through the sinking tide, and as the
eye wandered across the wide, unbroken stretches of the lagoon, it
seemed like a vast sea of glass. The day was so clear and so still that
the distant spires of Malamocco and Poveglia were mirrored in the
lagoon. To the young eyes of the girls, the twin pictures, against their
respective backgrounds of sky and water, were as clear-cut as an etching
held in the hand.
"Are those real islands, Uncle Dan?" asked Pauline.
But before Uncle Dan could make a fitting rejoinder, May exclaimed: "Oh,
look at the poppies!" and all eyes were turned to the shore.
Nanni had suddenly appeared, close above them, a perfect glory of
scarlet poppies in his hand. The sun shone full upon them, till they
fairly blazed with colour against the background of his dark figure. He
dropped on one knee, reaching down to place the flowers in the
Signorina's outstretched hand, and as she looked up brightly to thank
him, the two figures, with their sharply contrasted colouring, made a
startlingly pretty picture in the exquisite setting of water and sky.
"_Lungo!_"
The voice rang out musically, as most sounds do, across the water, and,
turning, May saw another gondola coming up astern. The curve of the
shore had hidden it from view until that moment.
"Do stay just as you are for a minute," cried the same voice, descending
to English. "We are out after effects, and we want those poppies."
"Of course you do," said May, "but you can't have them."
"Yes, we can, if you'll only hold them in your hand and let us pilfer
with our brushes. You won't lose a single poppy and we shall have them
all."
"If you had any artistic sense you would rather have those tilting about
on the shore," said May; "but if you prefer an indiscriminate mass of
colour you are welcome."
Geoffry Daymond's companion meanwhile was paying his respects to Pauline
and the Colonel, who were old acquaintances.
"May, you have never met Mr. Kenwick, I think," said Pauline.
"Oh, yes, I have," May declared; "but it was ages ago and he never would
take any notice of me."
"Do let me make up for it now," Kenwick begged, rapidly setting his
palette, by way of elucidating his request.
"How long ago is ages ago?" asked Daymond.
"Four years ago last winter," was the unhesitating reply. "It was when I
was fifteen and Mr. Kenwick used to come to see my sisters."
"My memory does not go back as far as that," said Kenwick. "I'm a child
of the hour."
He was a man well on in the thirties, who looked as if he had lived
hard; and since there was nothing in his chosen calling to account for
such an impression, the observer was led to seek its origin in the realm
of speculation. He had, to be sure, painted several good pictures, but
that was ten years ago. Since then he had lived on his reputation,
materially reinforced by a not inconsiderable income. As Pauline watched
his face, it struck her that his smile, which she had always objected
to, had grown positively glittering in its intensity. Uncle Dan, for his
part, thought the young man seemed amusing, but he wished he had not
happened to be old Stephen Kenwick's grandson.
"Then we may have you?" Geoffry was asking.
"I thought it was the poppies you wanted," said May, suspiciously.
"It is! it is!" cried Kenwick with fervour.
"But you make such a pretty setting," Daymond explained; "your dress,
you know, and the general colour-scheme."
"What fun to be a colour-scheme," cried May. "Uncle Dan, do you think I
might be a colour-scheme?"
"I don't know that you can help it," was Uncle Dan's rejoinder, intended
to express a proper resignation, but betraying, quite unconsciously, an
appreciation of more than the pale blue gown as a background.
Then Nanni, having returned to his post, was directed to row out a
little from shore, and presently the two artists were at work, rapidly
sketching in the bright figure with the slim black prow for a foil, and
the silvery reaches of the lagoon beyond.
Uncle Dan was sitting in the chair where he could watch the faces of the
young men. There was something in Kenwick's manner that antagonised him;
it was, somehow, too appreciative.
"I make a condition," the Colonel exclaimed abruptly, in his voice of
martinet. "If there's a likeness the sketch is forfeited."
"I'm safe," Geoffry laughed. "I never got a likeness in my life."
"I will be as evasive as possible," said Kenwick, somewhat nettled; "but
it's rather late to impose conditions."
"Am I holding the poppies right?" asked May, after what seemed to her a
long interval of silence. "I'm afraid they will begin to droop pretty
soon."
"The poppies are all right," Geoffry assured her.
"Does that mean the rest of it isn't? I posed for the girls in a studio
once, and they said I did it very well."
"Girls usually pose well," Kenwick observed; upon which May concluded,
most illogically, that he was conceited.
Pauline, meanwhile, had not turned toward the other gondola which lay
astern of theirs. She was watching her sister and wishing she could
sketch. She thought, if she could, she would rather do her as she
received the poppies from the hands of the gondolier. She had one of her
prettiest looks then, and the little touch of action was more
characteristic. There was something conventional, and therefore not
quite natural in this passive pose; May was not in the habit of sitting
still to be looked at.
"Would you like to see, Miss Beverly?"
The other gondola had glided up close alongside, and Daymond held out
his sketch. Faithful to his bond, and to his professed disabilities, he
had scarcely hinted at the face, but the pose was charmingly successful,
and the scheme of colour was all he had promised. Bright as the poppies
were, and well as they were indicated, without being individualised, in
the sketchy handling, the really high light of the picture was caught in
the golden hair, which gleamed against the silvery blending of water
and sky, and was thrown into still brighter relief by the graceful black
prow curving beyond it, but a little off the line.
"It is lovely," said Pauline, as she handed it to May.
"How pretty!" cried May; and then, recovering her presence of mind: "I
don't see how you got such a good red."
Uncle Dan, meanwhile, was examining Kenwick's sketch.
"How the devil did you get that likeness?" he exclaimed, forgetting, for
an instant, the condition he had made.
"Then the thing is forfeited," Kenwick remarked.
"That's a fact," the Colonel answered, turning up on the artist a glance
of quick distrust. "What's to be done about it?"
"That is for you to say," Kenwick replied. "The sketch is yours."
The Colonel's face flushed. He had a very lively appreciation of a
graceful act, and he was really delighted with the picture.
"Why, bless my soul!" he cried; "that's a present worth having! Eh,
Polly?"
"Indeed it is!" Pauline agreed, cordially, taking the picture from her
uncle's hand and studying it attentively.
"All the same," she said, as they were rowing towards home, half-an-hour
later; "I should much rather have had Mr. Daymond's sketch. It is not a
likeness, yet there's twice as much of May in it."
"Do you think so?" May queried, doubtfully. "Seems to me he didn't give
me any nose."
"Oh, yes, he did; there was a little dot that did very well for a nose.
And, besides, there isn't very much of you in your nose."
"I wish you had told me that my hat was tipped up on one side," May
continued, reproachfully. She was examining Kenwick's sketch with much
interest.
"It would have spoiled it if it hadn't been; your hair wouldn't have
showed half as well."
"Perhaps not; and the hair does look pretty," May admitted. "Do you
remember how pretty Mamma's hair was, Uncle Dan?"
"Of course I do. It was prettier than yours," the Colonel declared,
cheerfully perjuring his soul in the cause of discipline.
"So I thought," said May. "There's always something better than ours. I
wonder how it would seem to have anything really superlative."
As the gondola came up to the steps of the _Venezia_, May turned, and
looking back at the gondolier, said: "The _papaveri_ are beautiful,
Nanni."
She was delighted with her acquisition of a new word, and still more so
with the flash of pleasure her thanks called forth.
"No, he is not morose," she assured herself, as she stood on the
balcony, a few minutes later, and watched the gondola gliding away in
the golden afternoon light. The man was rowing slowly, against the tide,
but presently the long, slim boat, with the long, slim figure at the
stern, rounded the bend of the Canal and vanished.
VIII
The Pulse of the Sea
By the end of another week the life in Venice had come to seem the only
life in the world, and even May admitted that there was something
mythical about wheels and tram-ways and such prosaic devices for getting
about on dry land. Both she and Pauline had acquired some little skill
with the forward oar, for, as Uncle Dan justly observed, now that they
sometimes succeeded in keeping the oar in the row-lock for twenty
consecutive strokes, they were really very little hindrance to the
progress of the boat! May declared that no person of a practical turn
would ever take naturally to so unpractical an arrangement as that
short-lipped makeshift, designed to eject an oar at the first stroke.
Geoffry Daymond agreed with her in this, as in most of her opinions. He
declared in confidence to his mother that her views must either be
accepted or flatly contradicted, for they possessed no atmosphere, and
they consequently afforded no debatable ground.
Kenwick, on the other hand, very rarely saw fit to agree with the
positive young person who looked so pretty when she was crossed, or with
any one else, for the matter of that. He told May that she would row
better if she were not so wool-gathering, merely for the pleasure of
hearing her scornful disclaimer; and when Pauline pointed out that she
was herself the wool-gatherer, although her oar was quite as tractable
as her sister's, he assured her that she was as much a child of the
fleeting hour as himself.
It was Kenwick's method to talk to people about themselves, with a
judicious linking together of his own peculiarities and theirs. He
imagined that that sort of thing lent a piquancy to conversation. The
aim of Oliver Kenwick's life was to be effective; his art had suffered
from it, and even in social matters he sometimes had the misfortune to
overshoot the mark.
"Uncle Dan," Pauline had asked, one day, after an hour spent in
Kenwick's society, "what is the reason Mr. Kenwick makes so little
impression?"
"Because he doesn't tally," May put in.
"Well," said Uncle Dan, scowling perplexedly; "I don't quite make him
out. But we've always had a feeling in our family that some of the
Kenwicks were not quite our own kind";--an expression of opinion on
Uncle Dan's part which owed its careful moderation to the fact that he
had accepted and still treasured the poppy sketch. For there was one
thing that the Colonel deferred to even more than to his prejudices, and
that was his sense of obligation.
He therefore submitted, with a very good grace, to seeing a good deal of
the young man, and if it occasionally irked him to have Stephen Kenwick's
grandson about, he found his account in the spirit and ease with which
his two Pollys dealt with the situation.
Kenwick, of course, attached himself ostensibly to the Daymond party. He
seemed to bear Geof no grudge because of his defection in the matter of
the tramp among the Dolomites, which he himself, indeed, had appeared
ready enough to relinquish. Without any preconcerted plan it usually
happened that the two gondolas fell in with each other in the course of
the afternoon, an arrangement which was much facilitated by the
brilliant-hued banners floating at the respective prows.
"There's the flag-ship over by San Servolo," Geof would exclaim, seizing
an oar and giving immediate chase; or they would cruise about in an
aimless way until Kenwick dropped the remark that the Colonel had said
something about a trip to Murano that day.
The casual nature of Kenwick's allusions to the Colonel's party afforded
Geof no little amusement. His pleasure in Oliver's society had always
partaken somewhat of the admiring sentiment a plain man entertains for a
clever comedian. Being himself incapable of dissimulation, even in a
good cause, he was the more disposed to condone any harmless exercise of
a gift which he could never hope to acquire.
"I'm afraid they won't catch up with us any more, now that we have two
oars," said May, one afternoon, as the red banner sped swiftly past the
Riva, bound for the Porto del Lido. The day was bright and warm, and the
pretty linen awning with its crimson lining was spread above their
heads, somewhat obstructing their view. "I wish I could see whether they
were coming," she added, with outspoken solicitude. "It's so much more
fun to be a flotilla!"
"I think they will find us," said Pauline, smiling to herself, as if she
had pleasant thoughts. She would trust Geoffry Daymond to overtake them.
Pauline was no matchmaker, but, as she told herself, it was the sort of
thing that was always happening in the family, and Geof's liking for May
was as obvious as it was natural.
"Do you think, Vittorio, that we can really go out on the Adriatic?" May
asked.
Vittorio had been at the forward oar for a day or two, and to-morrow his
brother was to be dismissed and he was to return to his post.