to the Porto del Lido, and May had protested against the ocean swell.
She often thought of the sensation it had caused in her, and a curious
longing had come over her to feel once more that strange, disconcerting
thrill.
She wondered whether she should ever have a chance to speak to Nanni and
make him the offer of a gondola; she wondered if his face would flash
with pleasure and gratitude. Would he tell her why he had chosen exile
from the life and occupation he loved so well? Would he tell her
something about himself, give her the key to his strange melancholy and
reserve? She had very little hope of such a consummation, but she was
determined to make the attempt at the first opportunity.
And a few days after the Procession at the Canareggio, when he had so
gratefully handed "Pickle Johnny" over to her care, the opportunity
presented itself. For on that day the red and blue banners made the
long-anticipated trip to Torcello, that ancient cradle of Venice that
rocks on the bosom of the lagoon, miles away to the northward. An extra
oar was requisite for each gondola, and Nanni was drafted for the
occasion. Old Pietro brought with him a slender slip of a grandson, a
boy of sixteen, Angelo by name, who made up in skill and elasticity for
the robustness yet to come.
Kenwick was of the party, and in great spirits; but indeed there was not
one of them all who was not sensible of that agreeable exhilaration
which attends a propitious start. The morning was true Venetian, soft
and fair as a dream. Sweet scents were wafted over the water, and no one
thought to question whence they came. The men pulled with a will, for it
was a long trip, and all too soon they found themselves thridding their
way through low banked water-ways to the landing near the quaint old
church of Santa Fosca, their coming hailed with joy by a rapidly
recruited army of ragamuffins. Immediately upon landing, Vittorio and
Angelo were despatched to a neighbouring cottage in search of chairs and
table, and presently the party were established at their luncheon under
the beautiful colonnade of the Cathedral.
The ragamuffins, encouraged by a very ill-advised distribution of
coppers which had taken place at their first onslaught, were collecting
about the table with clamorous entreaties for _l'ultimo_. Uncle Dan had
begun it by his inability to resist the supplicating eyes of a beatific
midget who chewed the hem of her frock with the whitest of little teeth.
Kenwick, taking his cue from the Colonel, had mischievously carried out
the principle, by presenting a _soldo_ to each one of the assembly
having the slightest pretence to comeliness. Upon which the two Pollys,
unable to tolerate such cruel discrimination, had offered prompt
reparation to the feelings of the ugly ones. The consequence was, that
Vittorio and Angelo passed a lively half-hour in the role of sheep-dogs,
keeping the small and ravening wolves at bay while the meal was going
forward, dodging about after them among the pillars of the colonnade,
and conjuring them, with awful threats, to keep their distance, or else
they should receive _niente, niente!_
Happily the supply of food was double the legitimate demand, and while
the gondoliers returned the table and chairs the two young men amused
themselves and the rest of the company, by feeding the little beggars.
It was an engrossing sport for all concerned, and May, seeing her
opportunity, slipped away to the landing.
[Illustration: "The morning was truly Venetian, soft
and fair as a dream"]
She found the two gondolas moored a few rods down the _rio_, lying close
to the shore in the shadow of the alder bushes that leaned sociably over
the bank. Pietro was lying flat on the floor of his boat, fast asleep;
Nanni, whose gondola was the first she came to, was sitting in the bow
with a book in his hand, which he slipped into his pocket at the
approach of the Signorina. His hat was lying on the floor, and the
flickering shadows of the leaves on his face and figure made a peaceful
impression of summer and happy ease.
"Oh, Nanni; would you please hand me my sketch book?" May asked, as she
came up, and stood on the bank above him. He was already on his feet,
and he stooped for the book, which he handed to her with his curiously
inexpressive manner.
The young girl hesitated a moment, half-abashed by the stillness and the
solitude and the stately deference of this man whose life she was so
desirous of influencing. But she had too much spirit to retreat, and as
Nanni stood before her, grave and respectful, she said, in her carefully
correct, curiously unidiomatic Italian: "Nanni, I am not content to have
you go back to Milan. You were born to be a gondolier. It cannot be that
you do anything else as well, or that you like any other life, really.
Wait," she commanded, as he seemed about to interpose. "You must let me
finish. I want,--I want--" and a sudden confusion seized her; "I want to
make you a present of a gondola."
She paused and looked down upon him, with earnest, supplicating eyes.
She did so dearly long to gain her point; she was so sure, so touchingly
sure that she knew best,--and then, the face before her,--what was it
that it said? There was no grateful flash, only an increased dignity and
reserve.
"Signorina," he said, very gently, with a high-bred restraint of manner
that impressed her strangely, and increased her confusion, adding to it,
indeed, a sense of insufficiency and incompetence that she had never
before experienced: "Signorina,--you mistake me and my life. I am not at
liberty to say what would surely set your mind at rest, but,--I have no
wish to change my life, and,--I cannot accept your gift."
[Illustration: "Under the beautiful colonnade of the
Cathedral"]
She had thought to press the matter, to represent to him his own
short-sightedness, his misapprehension of his own best good; but she
found it impossible to urge her case. She felt herself confronted with a
will so much stronger than her own that she had not a word to say. She
only murmured: "I am very sorry about it," and was turning dejectedly
away, when Nanni's voice arrested her.
"Signorina," he cried, "Signorina, will you not forgive me?"
She turned, and there was a look of entreaty, a touch of real emotion in
his face which startled her.
"Why, Nanni," she said; "there is nothing to forgive. You know best."
She had not often said those three words in the easy self-confidence of
her youth. "You know best," she said. "It is I who should beg pardon for
thinking I knew."
She held out her hand to him, as naturally as she would have done to
Geoffry Daymond, and Nanni, stooping, lifted it to his lips.
The child did not know that it was the universal custom of his class;
that there was nothing else to be done when a gentlewoman extended her
hand to a gondolier. She only knew it was the first time in her life
that such a thing had happened to her, and she turned away in much
perturbation.
She found herself face to face with Geoffry Daymond, who was coming
along the bank in search of her.
"Ah, here you are," he cried gaily. "We thought we might have made a
mistake and fed you to the populace! The little brutes have eaten every
edible crumb we had, and seemed to want to try their appetites on the
table-cloth. Now we are all going up the tower of the cathedral to have
a look at things."
She wondered whether Daymond had seen that strange and rather dreadful
thing that had happened. Had she known him better, she would have been
sure that his burst of eloquence could have but one interpretation. He
had seen and wondered; two facts which must be suppressed.
As May and Geof came up the path, Kenwick, who was sitting in the stone
chair which is accredited to the ancient Attila, observed the look of
slowly subsiding emotion in the young girl's face, and a sudden pang
seized him, whether of friendly concern or of selfish annoyance, he
would have been the last to inquire. That they should have passed him
by, in his picturesque situation, without a word, thus cutting him off
from the delivery of a witticism which he had concocted for their
edification, was certainly a grievance, and as he rose to his feet,
unregarded, and followed after, it is perhaps not to be wondered at, if
the thought crossed his mind, that it might be worth while to cut Geof
out.
XII
A Promotion
Torcello offers a number of diversions besides that of camping under the
colonnade, or sitting in the chair of Attila, and May had soon found
relief from her momentary discomfiture, in the somewhat arduous exercise
of climbing to the top of the cathedral tower, and in readjusting her
mistaken notions as to the relative position of the various islands in
the northern lagoon. Venice, floating like a dream-city upon the brimming
tide, was not at all in the direction in which May had expected to find
it; indeed, so fixed was her idea of its proper whereabouts, that she was
within an ace of becoming argumentative on the subject. Her amusingly
irrational attitude gave rise to some lively sparring between herself
and Kenwick, who was at even more pains than usual to monopolise her
attention, both then and afterwards.
On their return to sea-level, it was he who pointed out to her each
detail of the antique mosaics and other mediaeval quaintnesses of the
cathedral; it was he who gave her a rapid sketch of the history of the
island,--recently gleaned from guide-books;--and when, presently, the
whole party went for a stroll in a flower-strewn meadow, he took such
decided possession of her, that the two were allowed to fall back, and
discuss at their leisure one and another question of vital interest
which he brought forward.
In the intervals of conversation Kenwick, watching the straggling group
in front, found it curiously gratifying to observe that Daymond did not
seem to have much to say for himself. Kenwick had not by any means made
up his mind to cut Geof out, but the possibility of such a feat gave a
new zest to his intercourse with May. He was one of those men who, in
their admirations at least, unconsciously take their cue from others.
His judgments were not spontaneous, and the value he placed upon any
good thing was greatly enhanced by the knowledge that it was an object
of desire to other persons. Even in the pursuit of his art, he was
governed less by a spirit of praiseworthy emulation than by the
sentiment of rivalry.
Having, then, definitely conceived the idea, which had, indeed, been
hovering in his mind for some time, that Geoffry Daymond was seriously
interested in May Beverly, the situation had gained a piquancy which
Kenwick found extremely seductive. He was far too wedded to his career
of "free-lance,"--a title which he took no little pride in
appropriating,--to have regarded with equanimity that awkward
contingency which goes by the name of consequences, but he was fond of
playing with fire, as over self-confident people are apt to be. It must
also be admitted that he took a very real pleasure in the bright beauty
and alert intellect of the young student of life who carried her golden
head so high and free, and with so individual a grace.
That he could, if he would, gain an influence over this frankly
impressionable nature, he did not for a moment doubt. Indeed, he had
never doubted his ability to win the interest of any woman, and since
he had never been so ill-advised as to put his fortunes to the touch,
nothing had yet occurred to disturb his self-confidence.
To-day, as he sauntered beside May Beverly in the quiet green meadow, in
shadow for the moment, only because a cloud had floated across the
sun,--so recently, that the insects had not ceased to hum, and sweet
odours still told how herbs and flowers had been steeped in sunshine but
a moment since,--he experienced a relish of life such as had only
occasionally fallen to his share. And when, presently, the sun came out
in full force, inducing the four more taciturn strollers to retrace
their steps, Kenwick felt that blaze of light to be doubly inopportune.
A few minutes later the flotilla was again on its way, awnings spread,
and flags flying. A breeze had sprung up, and when they were free of the
Burano canals, they found the water delicately ruffled. It was the
sweetest, gayest little breeze, and in sheer exuberance of shallow
emotion, the tiny waves plashed about the prow.
May, who was sailing under the blue banner on this occasion, glanced
now and then across the water, at the figure of Nanni, rowing the
forward oar. She had not quite her usual vivacity, a fact which did not
escape the attention of Kenwick in the other boat, and one upon which he
was at liberty to put any interpretation he chose.
The tide was in their favour, and they were making such good speed that
the oarsmen petitioned for a detour among the canals of San Erasmus,
where are market-gardens and fields and hedges. It was here that Geof
had listened to the whistle of the blackbird only the other day, as his
boat lay moored to the bank, while he sketched the tiniest of little
chapels, nestling modestly in the sparse shade of two dark cypresses.
His mind recurred to that peaceful hour, as he chatted in desultory
fashion with May, but those quiet musings seemed very far away and
unreal in the clear, matter-of-fact atmosphere that that charming young
person created about her, even in her quieter moods. Still further to
deter him from sentimental reminiscences, two small curs rushed forward
on the left bank of the tranquil water pathway--barking vigorously, and
rousing to an equally noisy demonstration another pair of sentinels on
the opposite shore.
As the gondolas went their way, however, without evincing any intention
of trespassing on dry land, the dogs subsided, and in the sudden lull
that followed, other senses than that of hearing were quickened. May was
just rousing to wonder what it was that smelt so sweet, when Angelo,
unable to resist the occasion, turned, and touching his hat, remarked,
with laconic eloquence: "Strawberries"; a suggestion which was not to be
resisted.
They moored at a modest landing, in the shadow of an acacia tree, when
Geof and Angelo were promptly dispatched upon a foraging expedition, the
ambitious stripling, who had so boldly taken the initiative, beaming
broadly at the success of his venture. May stepped forward and took her
favourite seat on the gondola steps, and, as the other boat came up and
tied to theirs, Kenwick was brought face to face with her.
"Strawberries?" he repeated, in reply to the joyful announcement; "my
life is saved!" Then, in a low voice: "I have been simply starving ever
since we left Torcello," he averred.
"You have?" May exclaimed, with discouraging literalness. "I suppose it
is the breeze, or perhaps the walk in the meadows."
"Yes," Kenwick answered, and there was something so very like sincerity
in his tone, that it did convey a dim impression of what was almost a
genuine feeling; "it was the walk in the meadow!"
May laughed lightly, yet a trifle constrainedly, he pleased himself with
fancying. "You shall starve no more," she said, "for here are the
strawberries."
The two ambassadors were striding down a rural path, their hands laden
with small baskets of diminutive scarlet strawberries. At their heels
came three dogs and one cat, acting as vanguard to a woman and a young
girl, who carried blue china plates of most aesthetic homeliness. A small
and bashful boy was clinging to his mother's skirts, taking, perhaps,
his first impressions of the great world.
"_Scusi, Signorina!_"
It was Nanni, stepping across Pietro's gondola to get ashore. May looked
up and her eyes met those of the gondolier.
"_Prego_," she answered, and there was a gentle courtesy in her voice,
and a kindness in her eyes, that would have been grateful to any man. As
Nanni stepped ashore and joined his brother and old Pietro under the
trees, it may be that he blessed her for them. But he had betrayed no
pleasure, and once more a sense of the sadness of life stole like a
shadow across the young girl's spirit.
To divert her thoughts, and to have an excuse for turning her back on
Kenwick, she tried making friends with the bashful _bambino_, who had
seated himself upon the grassy bank and was gazing furtively at her
bright silk waist.
Kenwick took the little ruse kindly. He had noticed that she spoke to
Nanni in a subdued tone, and he flattered himself that he had the key to
her change of mood. He employed himself with handing plates about, while
Geof dispensed the strawberries.
It was a pretty and peaceful scene. Kenwick had stepped into Mrs.
Daymond's gondola, and was invited to take the seat beside her; Geof
stood on the shore talking with the men. Uncle Dan and Pauline, sitting
side by side, found their attention about equally divided between the
toothsome strawberries and the little drama going on between May and the
_bambino_.
May had shared her fruit with the child, and now she was amusing herself
with decorating his small, grimy toes with coppers. He was an
unsophisticated little beggar, and evidently had no intelligent interest
in the cool, round coins, which nevertheless tickled his brown toes
agreeably. He looked up and smiled, showing a row of tiny white teeth,
and with the movement all the coppers slid off into the grass.
The mother had been watching the little scene, and May had a comfortable
assurance that that wealth of _soldi_ would presently be restored to its
legitimate function in the scheme of things. She turned from her pretty
fooling, and Kenwick promptly remarked: "Are you aware that you have
sown the seeds of mendicancy in the soul of that innocent child?"
"Oh, no; those were nothing but coppers," she retorted brightly, "and I
have sown them in the grass."
They had spent half-an-hour at their picnicking, and now a new division
of the party was proposed, according to which the four young people
should row out a bit toward the Porto, leaving the elders, in Pietro's
gondola, to take the more direct way home. And so it came about that
presently the Colonel found himself, floating with the Signora down the
quiet _rio_ by which they had entered the _vignoli_. So elderly was the
aspect of the gondola with its three gray heads to one black one, that
the very dogs refrained from barking, and in the grateful hush, broken
only by the dip of the oar, and the not all unmelodious creak of
Pietro's heavy boots, the liquid note of the blackbird sounded sweet and
clear.
The reflection crossed the Colonel's mind that this was the first time,
in all these weeks, that he had been alone with the Signora. He
wondered, in a self-distrustful way, what would come of it. It was
certainly very sweet to him to have her there beside him, quite to
himself. He wondered whether it struck her that it was an intimate,
confidential sort of situation. He was sitting a little forward, as his
habit was, and as he glanced under the awning, at the pretty, rural bit
of country that bordered the canal, it was easy to include her face in
his survey from time to time.
They chatted for a while of this and that indifferent topic, but it was
clear that they were both preoccupied and they soon fell silent. The
Colonel indeed, was nervously sensible that fate was closing in about
him, and that he might, at any moment, be betrayed into a false step.
For, despite his practical, Yankee common-sense, the old soldier was
something of a fatalist, and in the one most critical relation of his
life, he had always felt himself subject to mysterious and irresistible
influences.
Presently, as they came out upon the sparkling waters of the lagoon, the
Signora spoke. There was something in her voice that caused the Colonel
to turn, at the first word, and as he looked into her face, he pleased
himself with noting a new animation, that seemed a direct reflex of the
light that played upon the waters. Had he not long ago discovered that
mystic kinship?
"Geof and I are very grateful to you," she was saying, "for bringing
those charming girls of yours to Venice."
"You like them!" he exclaimed. "I knew you would. Nice girls, both of
them. It has been a great thing for them, having you here, and Geof.
Geof's a capital fellow."
She turned upon her companion a questioning, yet on the whole a pretty
confident look. "Colonel Steele," she asked, "should you greatly mind if
one of your Pollys should find it in her heart to make my boy happy?"
"What's that?" the Colonel cried. "You don't mean?--Bless my soul, I
never thought of such a thing!"
"It seems the most natural thing in the world to me," she said. "And
yet,--supposing your Polly should fail us! I can't expect Geof to be as
irresistible to other people as he is to me." She smiled, as if she were
half in jest, yet there was real anxiety in her tone as she asked: "What
do you think about it, Colonel Steele?"
"Why; I'm sure I don't know. It's something of a shock,--that sort of
thing always is, you know. Young people do go into it so easily. Of
course Geof's a fine fellow. You mean the little one?"
"Of course," said Mrs. Daymond; for though Pauline was far from little,
she had not the height of her tall young sister.
"Of course, of course. Well, well! And you want to know what I think
about it? I think she would be a lucky girl. That would make her your
daughter, wouldn't it? Why, of course she'll say yes! Any girl would be
a fool who didn't, and Polly's no fool. I only wish you had another son
for the other one!"
"I'm afraid she won't take Geof for my sake," Mrs. Daymond said,
smiling, half sadly.
"Oh, yes, she will; I'm sure she will!" cried the Colonel. "But what I
don't understand is--Geof. To be taken with a child like Polly, when,--"
He turned sharp about, and looked into her face, and there was no
mistaking his meaning. It was almost as if he had spoken the words she
had so often heard from his lips.
A great tenderness and compunction swept over the Signora, and found
expression in her face. Her beautiful grey eyes met the impassioned
trouble of her old friend's gaze, with a gentle directness that in
itself went far toward disarming and tranquillising him.
"I sometimes think," she said, "that perhaps this is what all
our--trouble has meant, yours and mine."
There was something indescribably consoling in the community of sorrow
the words seemed to imply. He had never thought before, that his
life-long chagrin had awakened anything more than a momentary regret in
her mind, that it had been a sorrow to her as well.
They were rowing past the cypresses of San Michele, and the Colonel
lifted his hat and placed it on his knees, looking straight before him,
with the slightest possible working of the muscles of his face. The
voice he was listening to was sweet and low, the tender cadence of it
seemed to inform the words she used with a spirit not inherent in them.
"I think," she was saying, "that I should be perfectly happy if I could
know that the long misunderstanding that has caused us both so much
pain, had had a meaning as sweet and acceptable to you as it would be to
me."
The Colonel pulled out his pocket-handkerchief and wiped his forehead,
surreptitiously including his eyes in the process.
"I've been a brute," he muttered, in rather a husky voice, scowling
savagely into the crown of his hat, which he had lifted from his knees.
As if displeased with its appearance, he put it on his head, where he
planted it firmly.
She knew that she had all but won the day, and she ventured what she had
not ventured before. For it had never been her way to prate of an
impossible friendship; if she used the word she meant to honour it. And
to-day something told her that at last she held control of the
situation.
There was nothing in her voice to betray the intense exertion of will
that she was conscious of making; on the contrary, her words sounded
only wistful and entreating, as she said:
"What friends we should be!"
And because it was the first time she had made that appeal to him, and
because these weeks of pleasant, normal companionship had subtly and
surely changed their relation, the Colonel could meet her half-way, like
the gallant fellow he was.
"What friends we _shall_ be!" he cried, clasping the hand which she had
involuntarily lifted. "And we won't let it depend upon those youngsters
either!"