My Friend the Chauffeur Part 35

"I am thinking of a very old house; Slosh--er--the Castle of Hrvoya.

Have you seen it?"

"Ah, that old ruin!" exclaimed the artist. "I seen it, yes. But there is not more much Schloss Hrvoya to see, only the rock for it to stand."

Poor Aunt Kathryn! I was sorry for her. But she bore the blow well, and, after all, it's the t.i.tle, not the castle for which she cares most--that, and the right to smear everything with crowns.

"Perhaps I'll ask you to paint Hrvoya for me some day," she said. But afterwards, when we had bidden the handsome brother and sister _au revoir_, she remarked that she was afraid Mr. Bari hadn't an artistic eye.

The good-byes said, we swept through the picturesque town to make up for lost time, and presently encountered a little electric tram running seaward on a causeway. We followed over a gra.s.s-grown road, and suddenly found Venice again, so near that we could actually distinguish one building from another. Beyond a broad stretch of water the dream city floated on the sea.

"Look; I did this for _you_, so that you would go into Venice in a way worthy of yourself," the Prince murmured in my ear, when the car had stopped, joining his which was waiting. He waved his hand towards a wonderful gondola, with a gesture such as Aladdin's Genie might have used to indicate the magic palace. The glossy black coat of the swan-like thing brought out the full value of the rich gold ornaments. A long piece of drapery trailed into the water behind, and two gondoliers, like bronze statues dressed in dark blue, crimson, and white, stood up tall and erect against a background of golden sea and sky.

They helped us in, hat in hand; and not the Chauffeulier's absence nor the Prince's presence could spoil for me the experience that followed.

Sunk deep in springy cushions, I half sat, half lay, while the bronze statues swayed against the gold, softly plying their long oars, and wafting me--_me_--to Venice.

I felt as if I were moving from the wings of a vast theatre onto the stage to play a heroine's part. Evening bells, chanting a paen to the sunset, floated across the wide water faint as spirit-chimes, and they were the _leitmotif_ for my entrance.

"What a shame to be in motoring things!" I said to Beechy. "Women should have special gondola dresses; I see that already--a different one each day. I should like to have a deep crimson gown and a pale green one--lilac too, perhaps, and sunrise-pink, all made picturesquely, not in any stiff modern way."

"The costume of your Sisterhood would be pretty in a gondola," Beechy answered. And again that coldness fell upon me which I always feel at a reminder, intentional or unintentional, of the future. But the chill was gone in a moment--lost in the luminous air, which had a strange brilliancy, as if reflected from a stupendous mirror. I had never seen anything even remotely resembling it before. It was as though we were living inside a great opal, like flies in amber. And it seemed that in a world so wonderful everything one did, or looked, or thought, ought to be wonderful too, lest it should be out of tune with all surrounding beauty.

Sea and sky were of one colour, except that the sea appeared to be on fire underneath its gla.s.sy surface. The violet sky was strewn with blown rose-petals and golden feathers; the tiny waves were of violet ruffled with rose and gold, and spattered with jewelled sparks which might be flashes from a Doge's vanished ring.

In the distance, sails of big ships were beaten into gold leaf by the sinking sun; and nearer, there were other sails bright as flowers--a sea picture-gallery of Madonnas, of arrow-wounded hearts, of martyred saints, or bright-robed earthly ladies.

We were rowing straight into the sunset, straight into fairy-land, and I knew it; but--what would happen when the rose-and-golden glory had swallowed us up?

The sparkle of the water and air got into my blood, and I felt that it must be sparkling too, like champagne. I was more alive than I had ever been when I was on earth; for of course this was not earth--this Venice to which I was going.

No other road but this water-road could have consoled me for the thought that there would be no more motoring for a week. And clearly it was a road of which it was necessary for the gondoliers to know every oar-length; for it was defined by stakes, standing up out of the lagoon singly, or gathered into cl.u.s.ters like giant bunches of asparagus.

Turning my back to the arched railway bridge, which accompanied us too far, I looked only at sky and water, and at Venice rising from the sea.

The tide was running out, the Prince said (among other chatterings, while I wished everybody woven in a magic spell of silence) and the gondola made swift progress, rocking lightly like a sh.e.l.l, over the bright ripples of the lagoon.

The nearer we drew to Venice the more like a vision of enchantment did the city seem. Not a sound came to us, for the music of the bells had died. All was still as in a dream--for in dreams, does one ever hear a sound? I think I never have. And now the gold had faded from the clouds, leaving them pink and violet, transparent as gauze, through which the rising moon sifted silver dust. How could the others talk? I did not understand.

Aunt Kathryn was saying, "If I hire a gondolier, I want to get a singer." As if he were a sewing-machine, or a canary-bird! And Beechy was complaining that she felt "very funny;" she believed the motion of the gondola was making her seasick, just as she used to be in her cradle, when she was too young to protest except by a howl.

It was a relief to my feelings when we turned out of the wide lagoon into a ca.n.a.l, for then they did at least speak of the scene around them, asking questions about the tall palaces that walled us in; who lived here; who lived there; what was the name or history of that?

The odour of seaweed was more pungent, and there was a smell of water mingling with it too; something like fresh cuc.u.mbers, and the roots of flowers when they have just been pulled out of the earth. I could not have believed that water could have such clearness and at the same time hold so many colours, as the water in this, my first ca.n.a.l of Venice. It was like a greenish mirror, full of lights, and wavering reflected tints from the crumbling palaces whose old bricks, mellow pink, gold, and purple, showed like veins through the skin of peeling stucco. Down underneath the shining mirror, one could see the old marble steps, leading up to the shut mystery of water gates. There were shimmering gleams of pearly white and ivory yellow, under beardy trails of moss old as the marble out of which it grew. And over high walls, delicate branches of acacia and tamarisk beckoned us, above low-hung drapery of wistaria, that dropped purple ta.s.sels to the lapping water's edge.

So we wound through one narrow, palace-walled Rio after another, until Venice began to seem like a jewelled net, with its carved precious stones intricately strung on threads of silver; and then suddenly, to my surprise, we burst into a great ca.n.a.l.

I saw a bridge, which I knew from many pictures must be the Rialto, but there was no disappointment, no flatness in the impression of having seen this all before, for not the greatest genius who ever lived could paint Venice at her every day best. Palace after palace; and by-and-by a church with a front carved in ivory by the growing moonlight, thrown up against a background of rose.

"Palladio, it must be!" I cried.

"Yes; it's San Georgio Maggiore, Terry Barrymore's favourite church in Venice," said Sir Ralph, who had been almost as silent as I. "And here we are at the Hotel Britannia."

"Why, it has a garden!" exclaimed Aunt Kathryn. "I never thought of a garden in Venice."

"There are several of the loveliest in Italy," replied Sir Ralph. "But the Britannia's the only hotel that has one."

"My friend's palazzo has a courtyard garden with a wonderful old marble well-head, and beautiful statues," said the Prince. "He and his wife are coming to call on you to-morrow, and you will have the opportunity of thanking them for their gondola. Also, they will probably invite you to leave the hotel, and visit them during the rest of your stay, as they are very hospitable."

"I'll wager you won't want to leave the Britannia, once you are settled there," said Sir Ralph quickly. "It's the most comfortable hotel in Venice, and Terry and I have wired for rooms with balconies overlooking the Grand Ca.n.a.l, and the garden. There isn't a palace going that I would forsake the Britannia for."

By this time the gondola had slipped between some tall red posts, and brought us to the steps of the hotel. I was glad that they were marble steps and that the house had once been a palace, otherwise I should not have felt I was making the most of Venice.

If I live to be a hundred (one of the Sisters is close on eighty) I shall never forget that first night in the City of the Sea.

It was good to see Mr. Barrymore back again for dinner in the big red and gold, brightly frescoed dining-room; and it was he who suggested that we should have coffee in the garden, at a table on a balcony built over the water, and then go out in gondolas.

We hired three; and as there are only two absolutely delightful seats in a gondola, I was trembling lest the Prince should fall to my unlucky lot, when Aunt Kathryn called to him, "Oh, do sit with me, please. I want to ask about your friends who are coming to see us." So of course he went to her, and Sir Ralph jumped in with Beechy; therefore the Chauffeulier was obliged to be nice to me, whether he liked or not. We all kept close together, and soon the three gondolas, following many others, grouped round a lighted music-barge like a pyramid of illuminated fruit floating on the ca.n.a.l.

Either the voices were sweet, or they had the effect of being sweet in the moonlight on the water; but the airs they sang got strangely tangled with the songs in other barges, so that I longed to unwind one skein of tunes from another, and wasn't sorry to steal away into the silence at last.

We were not the only ones who flitted. The black forms of gondolas moved soundlessly hither and thither on the surface of the dark lagoon, their single lights like stars in the blue darkness.

Far away twinkled the lamps of the Lido, where Byron and Sh.e.l.ley used to ride on the lonely sands. Near-by, on the Piazzetta where the twin columns towered against the silver sky, white bunches of lights glimmered like magic night-blooming flowers, with bright roots trailing deep down into the river.

We talked of the countless great ones of the world who had lived and died in Venice, and loved it well; of Byron, who slept in Marino Faliero's dreadful cell before he wrote his tragedy; of Browning, whose funeral had pa.s.sed in solemn state of gondolas down the Grand Ca.n.a.l; of Wagner, who found inspiration in this sea and sky, and died looking upon them from his window in the Palazzo Vendramin. But through our talk I could hear Aunt Kathryn in her gondola close by, saying how like the Doge's palace was to a big bird-cage she once had; and the Prince was continually turning his head to see if we were near, which was disturbing. We had nothing to say that all the world might not have heard, yet instinctively we spoke almost in whispers, the Chauffeulier and I, not to miss a gurgle of the water nor the dip of an oar, which in the soft darkness made the light flutter of a bird bathing.

I remembered suddenly how Sir Ralph had said one day, "You'll like Terry in Venice." I did like Terry in Venice; and I liked him better than ever at the moment of our return to the hotel, for there began a little adventure of which he became the hero.

As I stepped out of the gondola there was a flash and a splash. "Oh my gold bag!" I exclaimed. "Your present, Aunt Kathryn. It's in the ca.n.a.l; I shall never see it again."

"Yes, you will," said Mr. Barrymore. "I--"

"If there was much money in it, you had better have a professional diver come early to-morrow morning from the a.r.s.enal," the Prince broke in.

"I know an amateur diver who will get back the bag to-night--now, within the next half-hour I hope," went on the Chauffeulier.

"Indeed? Where do you propose to find him at this time?" asked the Prince.

"I shall find him inside the hotel, and have him out here, ready for work in ten minutes," said Mr. Barrymore.

"What fun!" exclaimed Beechy. "We'll wait here in the moonlight and see him dive. It will be lovely."

Mr. Barrymore was gone before she finished.

It was nearly eleven o'clock. The music-barges had gone; the hotel garden was deserted, and scarcely a moving star of light glided over the ca.n.a.l. Our three gondolas, drawn up like carriages at the marble steps of the Britannia, where the water lapped and gurgled, awaited the great event. The Prince pooh-poohed the idea that Mr. Barrymore could find a diver, or that, if he did, the bag could be retrieved in such an amateurish way. But I had learned that when our Chauffeulier said a thing could be done, it _would_ be done, and I confidently expected to see him returning accompanied by some obviously aquatic creature.

What I did see however, was a great surprise. Something moved in the garden, under the curtain of creepers that draped the nearest overhanging balcony. Then a tall, marble statue, "come alive," vaulted over the iron railing and dropped into the lagoon.