which were quite unintelligible to the foreigners. Yet May felt sure
that Nanni was being sent to the house they had just left.
"Do you and Nanni know the singer?" she asked, as they came out into the
full moonlight, above the Rialto bridge.
"Si, Signorina," the gondolier replied, with prompt exactitude; "her
sister's brother-in-law was the nephew of our grandmother's niece by
marriage."
"Oh!" May gasped, rendered, for once, inarticulate, by this surprising
exhibition of genealogic lore.
They were late in coming in that evening, and, as the girls opened their
chamber door, the perfume of the roses wafted to them conveyed a
delicate hint of unmerited neglect.
"Poor things!" said Pauline; "it _was_ a shame to leave them to
themselves all day long, doing nobody any good!"
"I know it," May admitted; "it was a shame; but I didn't want to wear
them, in all this heat, and I couldn't very well sit and tend them, all
day! I know what we will do," she added, with quick decision; "we will
take them round to the poor singer in the morning. Perhaps they may give
her pleasure."
"I wonder how Mr. Kenwick would like that," queried Pauline, who, in
spite of an inborn loyalty to the absent, was not ill-pleased with the
suggestion.
"I don't believe he would mind," said May, as she plunged the beautiful
things up to their necks in the water-pitcher; "he has probably
forgotten, by this time, that he ever sent them."
And Kenwick, stretched upon the deck of the _Urania_ in the moonlight,
after the others had gone below, was, at that very moment, murmuring
softly to himself:
"All June I bound the rose in sheaves."
XVI
A Surrender
May Beverly was not given to the study of her own countenance. She knew,
of course, that it was a creditable production of Nature, that she had
good features and pretty colouring and that her fellow-creatures, as a
rule, seemed to like her looks. Beauty had not stolen upon her unawares
as the case is with so many young girls. She had always been pretty,
with the unquestioned, outspoken prettiness of a graceful animal or a
bright-hued flower. She took it for granted, as she did those other
gifts, of health and youth, and, on the whole, she gave it very little
thought.
It was therefore the more remarkable that she should have just been
spending a good half-hour before the looking-glass. She had the room to
herself this afternoon, for Pauline had gone again to Torcello, this
time with a party of old friends who had recently made their appearance
in Venice, and whose claims upon her sister May was somewhat inclined to
question. To-day, however, their exactions fell in most opportunely with
a certain plan of her own, which had come to her in the shape of a great
inspiration. The Torcello party had started directly after luncheon and
were to return by moonlight, and, Pauline being thus satisfactorily
disposed of, there remained but one lion in the path, in the person,
namely, of Uncle Dan.
As May stood before the dressing-table, upon which were billows of
bright silk handkerchiefs, each of which had in turn suffered rejection
at her hands, she was arranging a large _fichu_ of Spanish lace upon her
head in such fashion as completely to cover her pretty hair. She tilted
her head first at one angle and then at another, scowling fiercely in
her effort to decide how great a change had been wrought in her
appearance. Whether owing to the presence of the scowl, or to the
absence of the yellow top-knot, the countenance certainly had a very
unfamiliar look, and, well pleased with the effect, she turned away and
stepped out upon the balcony.
The day was very warm, not a breath of air found its way under the
broad, striped awning that cast its grateful shadow upon the balcony;
the very water gleamed hot and desert, and the cooing of the Salute
doves had the gurgling, simmering sound of a great tea-kettle. May
leaned her arms upon the cushions of the stone balustrade and looked
down and off toward San Giorgio. How beautiful it was, even at high
noon, and how glorious it would be to-night, when the full moon came
sailing up into the twilight sky, and the cool, sweet breath of evening
was wafted over the waters! What an evening it would be! One to remember
all her life, all that long, every-day kind of life that stretched so
unendingly on into the future.
They had gone that morning, she and Pauline, to carry the roses to the
Signora Canti. They had found the poor singer weak and ill and
disheartened. The doctor had told her she must not sing for some days
yet,--surely not this evening,--and to-night was full moon, when the
tourists throng the Grand Canal, and before another full moon should
come the heat would have driven the pleasure-seekers away. "They fear
the heat, the _forestieri!_"
There was no one to take her place, the woman said. Just the chorus
singing would attract but few listeners; the other serenaders would get
all the people. This was the harvest time and it must be wasted. Ah! The
roses were _molto belle, bellissime_, Signorina,--but it was clear that
they offered little consolation for real troubles.
And, sitting there in the tiny room where the shutters were close drawn
against the morning sun,--which nevertheless pierced through a crack and
lit up, with one straight beam, the pitiful, drawn face of the poor
_cantatrice_, her great inspiration came to May. She had a voice and she
could sing. Why should she not sing for this poor woman, sing in the
moonlight and gather the gondolas about her? Oh, there would be no lack
of a soul in her singing, out there in the moonlight. Signor Firenzo
would not have lectured and entreated her in vain. She knew now what he
meant. She had been longing to sing, many an evening on the starlit
lagoons, and she had not dared.
A group of little children had come into their mother's room, and were
huddling shyly in a corner, gazing wide-eyed and silent, at the strange
ladies and the gorgeous roses, the like of which had never before found
their way there. May hardly noticed the children, so preoccupied was she
with her own thoughts, but the sight of them gave her sister courage. As
they rose to go, Pauline drew money from her pocket, and, bending over
the woman, she said, very gently: "Signora, we have never half thanked
you for your singing. May we do so now?"
The woman's eyes shone, and a pretty colour went up the pale, gaunt
cheek.
"Ah!" she said. "You have listened to my singing, and with pleasure? And
it is truly for my singing that you give me this, and not because you
are sorry for me?"
And Pauline, remembering how often the tired voice, strained to a high,
uncertain pitch, sounding across the water like a cry for succour, had
filled her with compassion, could say with truth; "Signora, your
singing has touched our hearts."
As May stood upon the balcony, gazing far out over the lagoon, her young
eyes undazzled by the intense mid-day light, she thought how sweet it
would be to see again that look of grateful pleasure upon the worn face.
Ah, she would sing! How she would sing! She would sing the heart into
those people in the gondolas; she would sing the money out of their
purses! The gondolas should gather about her till the water was black
with them. She would sing till the night rang with the sound of her
voice! A sense of power had come into her, which she had never felt
before. She should take command of those musicians, she should take
command of that mysterious, floating audience. No one would know her;
she should not know herself. For one splendid hour she should be set
free of herself.
It was the first time in her life that May Beverly had found herself
mastered by an enthusiasm. The consciousness of it suddenly seized her
and tilled her with a curious misgiving. She knelt down upon the floor
of the balcony, and, leaning her forehead against the cushion of the
balustrade, she tried to collect her thoughts, to regain her balance.
She wondered if she were very foolish, if it were a mere outbreak of
shallow vanity that ought to be suppressed. She hoped not. Of course
this thing that she wanted to do was shockingly unconventional. Anywhere
else, under any other circumstances, it would be out of character; but
here in Venice everything was different. She tried to shut out the magic
city from her thoughts,--to return to a perfectly normal state of mind.
The hour was very still, even the doves had fallen silent. For a few
seconds, as she knelt with covered eyes in her high balcony, only one
sound reached her ears; but that was the dip of an oar, the very
heart-beat of Venice. It had the intimate, penetrating power of a
whispered incantation; it touched and quickened the imagination more
than peal of bells or chant of marching priests. And as she knelt and
listened the young girl felt a scorn of the past and its limitations and
its trivial satisfactions--its petty reference of everything to a small,
personal standard. The great outer world was knocking at the door of
her heart, the world of suffering, and the world of joy, the world of
romance, and the world of real human experience.
She would sing to-night; she would let her own personality go, and be
just a human creature doing a daring, inspiring thing for the sake of
another human creature who was in need. With a sense of exultant
self-surrender she lifted her face and looked up at the Salute. Its
domes and pinnacles had been hidden by the low-hanging awning, but now,
with her eyes on a level with the balustrade, she could see the lovely
temple in all its gracious outlines.
"And I remember I used to wonder whether I liked it," she thought to
herself, with a singular feeling, as if she had been recalling a past
state of existence.
She rose to her feet and stepped inside. A pile of sheet music lay upon
the table, and she stood a few minutes beside it, turning over the
leaves and humming softly to herself. There was a rap at the door, and
Uncle Dan appeared.
At once her mood had changed. She was Polly, and here was Uncle Dan, to
be cajoled and entreated and vanquished.
"Oh, Uncle Dan!" she cried, "I thought you never were coming! I want to
talk to you."
"Why, Polly!" he exclaimed, "what are you up to? You look like a fright
in that thing!"
"Which means, you never would have known me," Polly declared
mischievously. "That's just what I wanted. Now come in like a dear and
let me talk to you. No, sit in this chair,--it's much more comfortable.
Have you had your cigar?"
"Of course I have. It's nearly an hour since luncheon."
"Don't you want another?"
"Polly! What are you driving at?"
"I only wanted to make you perfectly comfortable, so that you would
enjoy having a little chat with me."
She had seated herself in a low chair opposite him, where she could look
straight into his eyes. She pulled off the black lace and proceeded to
fold it with great care and precision. There was a look in her face,
calculated to make the old soldier call out all his reserves.
"Well, out with it, Polly!" he cried.
"It's about that poor singer, Uncle Dan; the woman we took home last
night. You remember?"
"Remember? I'm not losing my faculties, Polly!"
"Yes; of course you remember! What was I thinking of? Well, you know we
went to see her this morning, and took her those roses of Mr. Kenwick's.
Uncle Dan,--they didn't seem to meet the case!" and May looked at her
victim with the gravity of a secretary of the metropolitan board of
charities.
"That was rather hard on those particular roses," Uncle Dan observed,
with a certain grim satisfaction.
"Yes, I think it was. But,--Uncle Dan, I've thought of something much
better than roses. I'm going to sing for her!"
"Will that meet the case?" asked the Colonel, doubtfully. He too had
been wondering what could be done for the niece by marriage of
Vittorio's grandmother's--what did he say she was?
"Yes; for you see I shall be a novelty, and I sing better than she
does, and we shall take a lot of money."
"A lot of money, for singing to that woman? Polly, what are you talking
about?"
And then it was that Polly took the field, and marshalled all her
arguments, and did such valiant battle to the Colonel's dearest
prejudices and most cherished theories, that he was fairly bewildered
and demoralised.
She knew she could do it, she knew she could sing, and singing always
sounded lovely on the water. She was in splendid voice,--she had been
practising _pianissimo_, and it went like a charm. Not a soul would know
her. She was going to wear a plain black skirt and a sulphur shawl,--she
had always meant to buy a sulphur shawl,--and a lot of beads round her
neck. She was going to twist some black stuff about her hair, and then
pin the Spanish lace on in the most artistic and Italian manner.
"And you know, Uncle Dan, my hair is the most noticeable thing about me.
When that's covered up I am quite another person. And then the light
will be very dim, and so many queer colours from the swinging lanterns
that I shan't have the vestige of a complexion left!"
"But the promiscuous audience, the rough company on the barge!" the
Colonel urged, struggling but feebly against a premonition of defeat.
Already the old soldier quailed miserably before the enemy.
"They are not a rough company," Polly declared. "I asked Vittorio all
about it. He knows nearly all the men, and he says they are _galant'
uomini_. Signor Canti will be there, and he will take beautiful care of
me. Signora Canti is to have all the proceeds beyond a certain sum that
the others will agree upon."
"The thing seems pretty well settled between you and your _gallant
hominies_," growled Uncle Dan, trying to be severe.
"No; it's all settled in my own mind, but I haven't breathed a word of
it to anybody but you. And of course you have got to say yes, before I
shall take any steps!"
Superficially regarded, this seemed like a concession; but the Colonel
knew better. "You have got to say yes!" To his ears it sounded like the
fiat of inexorable fate, and he only gazed, with a look of comical
deprecation at the youthful orator who was gesticulating with the lace
_fichu_, to the destruction of its carefully laid folds.
"Polly, your father would not listen to such a thing for a moment," he
jerked out, getting very red in the face.
"But he won't have to; he never need know a word about it!" Alas, that
was a line of reasoning that struck a responsive chord.
"But Polly would never consent."
"That's the beauty of it! She's safely out of the way."
"And Mrs. Daymond,--she would be shocked, I am sure," and his fine
colour faded with consternation.
"Not if she never knows it!"
"But I shall know it," he protested, faintly. Then, gathering himself
together for a last effort:
"No, Polly, I can never consent. Never! You understand! It's useless to
talk about it!" and the Colonel got upon his feet and stepped out upon
the balcony, breathing fire and slaughter to all revolutionary schemes.
And then Polly knew that she had won the day. When Uncle Dan grew
emphatic and peremptory it was a sure sign that he was weakening.
She followed him out upon the balcony, and slipped her hand within his
arm.
"O, Uncle Dan," she said, in her most insinuating tone. "You haven't the
least idea how I shall sing! You never heard anything so fine as it will
be. I shall sing, so that all the gondolas will come gliding up to
listen. And there will be the moon sailing up the sky, and the world
will be so big and so dark that I can let my voice out without a thought
of myself, and--O Uncle Dan! say yes!"
Then a slow, intense flush mounted in the sun-burnt cheek, while a light
kindled in the eyes, set deep within the bushy eye-brows. And Uncle Dan
looked into the ardent face beside him, and, before he could stop
himself, he had exclaimed, half under his breath:
"Gad, Polly! But I should like to hear you!"
XVII
The Serenata
From the moment when the Colonel made his fatal admission, his cause was
lost and he knew it. He was too good a soldier to fight for the sake of
fighting, but he was not a little shocked at the alacrity with which he
went over to the enemy.
Yet the step was not an unprecedented one. It was not for nothing that
he had been for years the willing slave of his Pollys, that his whole
training as uncle had tended to cultivate in him the grace of obedience.
"As the twig is bent the tree inclines," and he had been the merest twig
of an uncle, if not in years, at least in experience, when he had
yielded to the sunny persuasiveness of that first faint glimmering of a
smile in the baby face of the original Polly. His subjugation, moreover,
having hitherto proved beneficial in its results, he was the more
excusable, to-day, for letting himself be swept along by the impetus of
his tyrant's will.
There was little time for reflection; indeed, as it was, a young person
of less executive ability than May could hardly have accomplished what
she brought to pass in the few hours at her disposal. She flew from the
_Venezia_ to the Signora Canti for the first unfolding of her plan, from
the almost speechless Signora to the Merceria in search of the sulphur
shawl, and thence to the Signora Canti again, attended all the while by
Uncle Dan, whose cane struck sharply on the pavement of the narrow,
reverberating alley-ways. The business was all transacted on foot, that
even Vittorio might be kept in ignorance of the great secret. Through
the good offices of the Signor Canti the barge musicians were
interviewed, and the details of the undertaking arranged. Even a small
rehearsal was brought about in the somewhat restricted quarters of the
Canti apartment, and great was May's rejoicing, to find how many of her
favourite songs were well known to the quartette of accompanists.
As the Colonel looked back upon the afternoon, he had a bewildered sense
of having taken part in a general engagement, very brilliant in
character, but with the conduct of which he, as private, had had no
concern whatever. And now it was evening, and he was floating in the
gondola out on the broad basin of St. Mark's, awaiting, with no little
trepidation, the progress of events.
No, his nieces would not be with him, he had told Vittorio. One was gone
to Torcello, and the other had an engagement for the evening,--which
Vittorio thought _peccato_. The _padrone_ proposed to float about in the
moonlight for a while, and listen to the music, and this, at least, was
_benissimo_ and commanded the gondolier's warmest approval.
Scarcely had Vittorio been thus pacified than the barge with its
dangling lanterns, beneath which the Colonel had seen his Polly safely
ensconced but a few minutes since, came floating out from a narrow
canal, and glided slowly along the Riva, past the Royal Gardens and the
Piazzetta, to the outermost of the great hotels. Sitting among the
"gallant hominies" was a figure in a sulphur shawl, with a cloud of
Spanish lace about the head, so ingeniously disposed that the features
were somewhat hidden, yet apparently with no intention of covering the
face.
"That looks like the Canti barge, Vittorio," the Colonel remarked. "Let
us go nearer and find out who is to do the singing. Do you know the
woman?"
"No, Signore. It is a stranger," Vittorio declared. "It is not a
Venetian."
"What makes you think so?"
"I do not know her face."
The sunset glow had quite faded from the sky and the great disk of the
moon hung like a luminous shield over beyond San Giorgio. Its wonderful
light, liquid and silvery as the water of the lagoons, flooded their
wide reaches, and touched with a soft splendour each sculptured facade
and arching bridge of the Riva, and the masts and hulls and loose-reefed
sails of a group of fishing boats lying close alongside the quay. Far up
the canal, a tenor voice could be heard, strong and melodious, and stray
gondolas were tending toward it.
Suddenly, more than one oar was stayed, and more than one face was
turned toward the Canti barge. The music had begun, with a familiar
Neapolitan melody, in which all the voices and instruments took part.
But high above them all rose a clear soprano, only the sweeter and the
richer for the dull rhythm of the lesser voices. One by one the receding
gondolas turned and came nearer, one bright eye gleaming at each prow,
as they stole like conspirators upon the gaily lanterned barge. And from
farther away still, from the Grand Canal and from the waters of the
Giudecca, black barks came floating, and silently joined the growing
throng. The chorus had sung twice, thrice, four times,--always the
popular airs, so familiar, yet to-night so new, by reason of the lift
and brilliancy of the leading voice.
[Illustration: "The Serenata"]
One of the men stepped across the Colonel's gondola and on from one to
another, hat in hand. "_Per la musica!_" he entreated, and a goodly
shower of nickels and coppers and fluttering _lire_ were gathered
in. But still not a gondola moved away, and later comers had to tie on
the outskirts, spreading now, fan-shaped, with twinkling eyes, far over
toward San Giorgio.
Uncle Dan fell to counting the twinkling eyes, and his heart swelled
within him. There must be close upon a hundred people here, drawn
hither, held fast, by his little Polly. There she stood, in her sulphur
shawl, unrecognisable, to be sure, but natural and self-possessed as if
she had been singing in her own parlour.
Somebody called for Gordigiani's _O Santissima Vergine_,--a favourite
song of "la Canti." The singer rose again to her feet. The low, pulsing
accompaniment sounded on the strings, and presently the voice began,
with a softly vibrating tone, different from the resonant quality which
had first attracted the listeners.
"_O Santissima Vergine Maria!_"
"I told you it was a trained voice," Uncle Dan heard someone say in a
neighbouring gondola. "I believe she's a stage singer. Just listen to
that!"
"Hush, don't talk!" the answer came. "It's the sweetest thing I ever
heard."
And in truth a delicate, penetrating pathos had come into the fresh
young voice, pleading so melodiously for the life of "_mio ben_."
"O Maria, O Maria," was the artless supplication; "I vow to give to
thee the ring my mother bought for me four years ago, and the coral
necklace, _tanto bello_!" And then, with simple fervour, the Madonna was
assured that, would she but save _il poverino_, a candle should be burned
to her every Saturday,--"_ogni Sabbato, Maria, Maria_!"
As the last note ceased, sweet and sad, on the night air, a burst of
applause went up, and, "_encore, encore_," the forestieri shouted,
"_encore_!" And other gondolas came gliding up, and the spreading fan
stretched in ever widening compass, divided now, like the pinions of a
great sable bird studded with dots of light. Then, while the flowing
moonlight brightened, and a perfumed breeze came wafted over the water
from the rose gardens of the Giudecca, the sweet voice again took up the
simple and touching strain.
After that it was an ovation,--"an ovation, I tell you," Uncle Dan would
declare, when bragging about it to the other Polly. "Why, the people
were perfectly carried off their feet! When the hat went round they
didn't know what it was they pulled out of their pockets. A ten-franc
piece seemed cheap as a copper. And all the time, Polly, standing
there, singing her heart out! It was an ovation, I tell you,--an
ovation!"
And as Polly sang on and on, light opera airs, rhythmical barcarolles,
songs of the people, with their naive, swinging cadence, a new, exultant
sense of power seemed lifting her above her own level.
And presently an inspiration seized her, and, leaning forward, she said
to Canti: "Make them row out on the lagoon, toward the Lido; I can sing
better there."
Then the barge loosed itself from the clinging gondolas, and slowly
glided out and away. And all the gondolas followed, with the soft plash
of many oars, on and on, after the swinging lanterns and the syren
voice.
To the young girl, borne out of herself into a strange, unimagined
experience of beauty and harmony and power, into a newly awakened
sympathy, too, with each dreamer and lover and mourner whose lay she
sang, it was as if old things had passed away and all things were become
new. And presently, as they drifted on in the flooding moonlight,
leaving the lights of the city behind them, she could see the small,
low glimmer of a gondola-lamp gliding from out the mysterious spaces of
the lagoon.